Chuck vs Damn That Kung Fu!
by EaSyDrEaMeR
Summary: My first fanfic. Post 2x22, team Bartowski gets a new cover but the Ring lies in wait and a new mysterious player bursts on the scene. Anonymous reviews allowed. Warning: high content of action, Charah and humor... or at least an attempt at it...
1. That Painful Kung Fu!

**Chuck vs. ****Damn That Kung Fu!**

_Hi, this is my first attempt to write a fanfiction, so fe__el free to voice any criticism or tip, only don't be too unforgiving in your reviews..._

_Besides__, I know that my English is bad (I'm from dear old Italy...), sorry about that! I'll do my best to improve my skills._

_Obviously I do not own Chuck and __the characters, all are property of NBC._

_I know this chapter is short and lacks new ideas, but __I didn't put too much effort into writing it, so if there will be new chapters I promise they'll be more intriguing._

_Having s__aid this, REVIEW, REVIEW, REVIEW!_

_Last __but not least: let me know if I broke some of the site rules, I hope I did all right._

_Update__ (1): sorry about the previous use of brackets instead of the quotation marks, but in my country that seems to be the standard..._

_Update (2): revised and corrected with the help of __**kroblues**__… Eventually I have a real beta-reader! Thank God! Added some new dialogues and a bit more angst (however nothing revolutionary)_

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"I know Kung Fu!" shouted Chuck, totally amused and yet not truly believing what he'd just done.

Some seconds of pure motionless silence flooded the room, until…

"You, you… YOU!" growled Casey, staring at him, while the last trace of astonishment was disappearing from his face, leaving the place to a truly scary expression "MORON!"

"Casey! I was expecting something more original this time!" moaned Chuck "Hey, what's up with him? I just saved his life…" he continued towards Sarah, desperately searching for her eyes.

She was still having serious problems formulating a single word, not to mention lifting her jaw, which had dropped to the ground.

"Sarah? Sarah, are you okay? Are you hurt?" he asked with a growing sense of fear. Fear of having hurt her himself, with the decision he took a few minutes before. Fear that she couldn't forgive him.

Finally she shook lightly her head and was able to say "I-I'm fine… But… But what about you?"

"W-what?"

"You're shaking…" she managed to say in a feeble voice.

"Oh!" said Chuck a bit too loudly, looking at his hands as if it was the first time in his life he realized he had them. "I guess… I guess it's normal considering… well, you know… my recent promotion from 'asset' to 'unbeatable asset with superpowers'…" he joked. "Or 'hero' if you prefer…" And then he couldn't help grinning.

A little smile crossed her face too, as she quickly glanced up at him and pulled back just before losing herself in that warm brown chocolate lakes. She wasn't sure she could withstand them.

A smile of relief for both of them. For Sarah, who finally recognized that the kind, caring and funny old Chuck was still at his place, just near herself. And for Chuck, who could finally shake the weight off his shoulders.

But it didn't last long. Like the rainbow after a storm, their feelings lasted no more than an instant, whereas the wet of the rain didn't go away at all, leaving both of them soaked to the bone in that little, but as deep as hell, puddle of blood.

Bryce's blood.

"Sarah…" began Chuck, but he couldn't go on. Thousands of words were trapped in his chest, frozen by the despair in her eyes.

"A-AHM!" said the Colonel clearing his throat. "Sorry to bother you with such a trifle, but would you two mind helping me find the keys for the handcuffs?" despite the choice of words, he absolutely wasn't that gentle.

He had to be harsh. Walker was clearly having some serious problems standing on her feet.

"Casey, you know, that actually sounded like a threat… You really should work on your speech abilities if you want people to…"

"Bartowski, shut up! Or I'll…"

"However I never would have thought that you could know such a difficult word like 'trifle'." said Chuck, trying to sneer. "It was surprising." He could feel Sarah briefly rouse herself behind him.

"At least I didn't need to upload the Intersect in my head to learn it!" muttered the agent. And after a pause he added "Moron!"

"Ouch! Touché…" admitted Chuck unwillingly. Then, ignoring Casey's order, he turned to his cover-girlfriend, who was trying to unlock the door keypad.

As she moved her finger over the pad, Sarah looked at her slightly-shaking hands like she didn't recognize them any longer. She tried to force them to stop, but her efforts were in vain. Once the door opened she hurried out, kneeling to feel Bryce's pulse. That was also in vain.

Breathing became more and more difficult, as she felt tears muscling in towards her eyes. She couldn't do even that.

That was odd. She'd always got what she wanted, all her life she did nothing but succeed in what she tried to do. But now, in a couple of minutes she hadn't been able to either react to the sight of Bryce's body, or to withstand Chuck's gaze. Nor to stop her damned hands, or even to choke back the couple of lonely wet gems that were cutting her cheeks. She could feel them unmercifully burning her flesh.

_What __am I turning into?_ Sarah asked herself. When she'd become an agent she'd promised herself that her heart would always be empty, free from all the dangers of a real life with its real feelings. She'd suffered enough when her mother went away and when her father was taken away from her.

Graham had given her a future. She'd made sure her heart would never interfere with it.

Chuck didn't know what to do, nor did he know what he, a common Buy More ex-employee, at least until an instant before, could possibly have done to save his… His…

_Nemesis?_ No, sure not. That was only a residual from his previous life.

_Savior?_ He risked his own life to help him against Roark, at Ellie's wedding.

_Protector? _At least…

_Friend?_ Sort of. Maybe the kind of friend that _is just there_ without you knowing it. The ones that get behind you as you don't realize you're walking backwards.

Suddenly another sad thought crossed his mind. Maybe if he had been Awesome…

Once again he silently swore at himself, at his powerlessness…

On the other side of the room Casey was still mumbling "Moron!" at every step.

"Oh, c'mon Casey! I already feel bad enough! Could you please end this wrecking campaign against my pride?" asked Chuck, coming back to planet Earth.

He sighed.

All of a sudden, Sarah stood up and walked towards him, leaving the dead body behind her. Any trace of any previous smile had faded away. She was clearly choking back her tears, just a small one had been able to dodge her defenses and was now sliding down on her right cheek. There was no doubt that that wasn't the first tear she'd shed.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." he apologized instinctively, in a whisper. "When I came in, he had already lost all that blood… I didn't know what to do. Sarah, believe me, I feel so guilty…"

She put a forefinger on his mouth, her crystal blue eyes finally staring deep inside his warm brown ones "You don't have to…" she reassured him. Her voice was firm, her eyes were less. A sad smile widened upon her face as she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly. She was feeling as if she had been split in two. The standards of happiness and relief marching against the banners of sadness and mourning. "You're safe." she whispered.

He winced. "Ugh! More or less…" objected him, with eyes wide open and a frozen smile on his face.

"What's up?" she backed off a step, looking at him with a worried expression.

He winced again as he tried to move himself. The effect of adrenaline was fading away.

"Moron!"

"CASEY!" both Sarah and Chuck rebuked him simultaneously.

Every muscle started shouting its pain to his brain throughout his nerves, like they were a big metal pipe amplifying the sound and also making it more sharp than it seemed possible.

"Maybe I should have done more sport since I left college." stated Chuck, trying to minimize the worry with an aching grin on his face.

"Be honest Bartowski!" said Casey "Also _before_ leaving the college."

"Indeed… Hey, wait a minute, how did you know that?"

Sarah cracked a smiled and a sneer appeared and quickly disappeared on Casey's face.

"Oh, yeah, spy stuff… Obviously you've done your homework and studied my dossier."

At those words Casey burst out laughing.

Chuck couldn't see any smile on Sarah's face, but he _felt_ the shadow of one crossing her eyes. She was slowly rousing herself. Though he couldn't tell if it was just a protective shield.

"What's up with you two?!" he continued "Well, this time I must admit that I don't get the joke, but maybe it could depend on the fact that I am the only one here who cannot move a muscle!"

"Ah! I found them!" said the Colonel rising from next to an unconscious enemy agent with a key ring in his hand. He freed himself and then threw the keys to the couple that was at the other side of the room. The little metal shapes danced awkwardly between Chuck's hands, which he moved as if his arms were two stiff pieces of wood, before falling to the ground.

"Glad you're still the same Bartowski!" Casey mocked him.

"Ah ah, reeeeally funny… I surely would laugh, if only I could disregard the fact that I can't move!"

"Does it look as if I care?" replied him.

During the short squabble Sarah picked up the keys and handed them to Chuck, so he could free her hands. Despite Casey's rudeness she had to admit that he was right. She too was glad that the new Intersect had not changed Chuck. Her _second_ greatest fear dissolved in a feeble sigh of relief.

Her first one was still there. Pulsating in her heart. Girl-feelings as Casey used to say? Or mankind-feelings? _Why not just sweet-feelings?_

She was still rubbing her reddened wrists down when suddenly Chuck flashed. It was a real quick flash and instantly he started dropping to the ground. Sarah tried to stop his fall, but she wasn't fast enough. Surprisingly, however, Chuck didn't hit the floor.

Probably because he was not falling.

In fact with a fluid move he unsheathed a throwing knife from Sarah's ankle holster and powerfully cast it, sticking it in the floor right before the hand of Miles, who had come round and was sneaking towards a gun.

Three pairs of astonished eyes were staring at him. "Oooow!" he groaned "I know I'm supposed to say something cool and/or funny, and believe me if I tell you that I'm really sorry 'bout my lack of creativity…" Sarah and Casey were wordlessly staring at him, both standing still (except for Casey, who in the meantime was enjoying very much kicking the face of that Ring's bastard who dared trying to reach a gun). "…and I also hate to be exceedingly iterative, but… I CAN'T MOVE!" he screamed. "Guys, I doubt I'll go home with my own legs tonight!"

* * *

When the support squad and the cleaning team got there, all the Ring's men were taken away. That traitor Miles received the tender loving care of the Colonel, who couldn't help to beat the shit out of him every time he dared to look at his ex-senior officer.

"Everyone talks." he whispered threateningly, "Sooner or later everyone talks. You will too, and I promise you I'll personally make sure of this." a cruel grin appeared on his face, while the arrogant grimace melted on Miles' face.

* * *

Meanwhile Chuck was receiving the medical assistance he needed from two Agency paramedics. Sarah held his hand all the time, especially when they took a small syringe of morphine that Chuck's subconscious automatically turned into a weapon of mass destruction, specifically designed to make his eyes bulge out of their socket.

Sarah just stood there, _almost_ truthfully smiling when her cover-boyfriend over-pleased the two doctors and consequently remained disappointed by their coldness. "Okay, they are really professional and all, but they're as cold as a shower of liquid nitrogen." He complained, but he forgot everything when he turned to Sarah and lost himself in her eyes. Without any particular reason he set a ten thousand megawatt smile on his face. Any particular reason _except_ her beauty.

A quite forbidden beauty, he thought, and his smile lost some light bulbs.

The paramedics went away without saying goodbye. The last words they told him were about keeping ice on the painful muscles and not doing anything as stupid as Kung Fu without training.

"Thanks!" said Chuck sarcastically at their back, as they were walking away. "Luckily you guys have studied medicine; otherwise I wouldn't know how to live through this…"

Sarah glanced at him and barely kept from laughing.

She never left his side until two cleaners brought out Bryce's body in a large, cold, black bag.

Only then she stood up slowly, bitterly and sadly looking at his shape under the wrinkles of the plastic.

Chuck gathered all his energy, grit his teeth and followed her. He felt like he was standing on a tall pair of stilts, both physically and emotionally "I only realized he truly was one of my best friends at the end. He would have done anything to protect me. And in the end he did everything that was necessary and more, much more…"

A mantle of silence fell over them.

Eventually her voice lifted it. "I broke his heart." were the only words she could let out.

Or, perhaps, the only words she _couldn't_ keep inside.

"When you chose not to leave with him?"

"How do you know that?!" she asked, completely surprised and a bit confused.

"He told me just before… You know… Just before the end." he heaved a sigh. A sad one. "I thought I should forgive him for having expelled me from Stanford, but now I'm starting to consider the idea of _asking his forgiveness_ for having shifted the blame to him for all these years."

"So… You didn't re-upload the Intersect because of me? You…" she said with a bit of relief in her voice. "You didn't give away your dream of a real life only to keep me here with you?" she asked. Tears were threatening to slide out from the corners of her eyes.

He caressed her face with both his hands, gently pulling her nearer to lay aside on her lips a sweet kiss. He'd finally understood: "What's more real than this?" then he stated "It was just the right thing to do, I suppose… In addition, someone persuaded me that I am a hero." joked him showing his world-famous smile.

Looking at him with a praiseful glance, she forced herself to give him at least a half-smile and said "Don't get big-headed now." Then she looked down at Bryce and a grieving mood stained her voice "Chuck… You're…"

"Fantastic. Yeah, yeah, I know." he nodded.

She couldn't help but smiling. But soon her expression darkened again. "What I was trying to say is that you're really sweet, and caring, and kind, and nice, and whatever else…"

"But? Because there actually _is_ a 'but', am I right?"

"It's not what you think…"

"Try me out. Will you?"

She reluctantly nodded her head.

"You blame yourself for his death, am I right?" Began Chuck, "you think you could, or better still, _should_ have come with him at least for this last mission."

She stood silent, staring at an imaginary point down to her left. Neither an assent nor a denial came from her. He was right, but that was only a piece of her inner torment.

Her immobility persuaded Chuck to continue. "Okay, now listen carefully to me. If you had come with him here, tonight, you too would have died for sure, and I know that he would have never wanted this for you."

Sarah shook her head. "You almost don't… Didn't know him. How can you be so sure?" she questioned back.

"Because this is what _I_ would've never wanted for you. To die for me." After that he remarked: "Never. Don't you dare die for me." the look in his eyes was strong and determined like never before.

She finally looked up at him. Captured by his whole-hearted expression, she sighed "Maybe you're right." She paused and continued after a few seconds. "I guess both of us will never forget him. This is the best we can do to show our appreciation…" her voice cracked at that word "…for all his efforts."

As the handcart finally slid out of their sight, both said "Goodbye, Bryce." Their hands were clasped, and they joined with their quite sad thoughts.

After a few minutes of silence, Sarah turned to Chuck. "Let's go." she suggested, offering him a tender smile that warmed both their hearts.

They headed towards the elevator supporting each other, one hard step after another.

After a particularly difficult one, she couldn't help but teasing him "By the way, how could you be so sure I would be willing to die for you?"

"O-oh, that, well…" babbled Chuck while his face started turning beet-red "I was, you know, so involved in my speech that…"

Sarah couldn't hide longer her smile. Her Chuck didn't change at all. "Don't worry! Just joking."

"Seriously?! Are you serious?! Go easy on with me, I'm soooo badly injured I could collapse in any moment! Besides…" but he stopped when he realized the implications of what she just told "Wait, wait, wait a minute, wait-a-minute! You would really die for me?!"

Her hearty laugh echoed sweetly through the corridors.

* * *

Outside Sarah went to fetch the car while Casey was holding Chuck on his weak and painful legs, as they were waiting near the entrance of the Intersect building.

"By the way: good work down there, Bartowski. I thought Walker would have fallen apart. You've managed to cheer her up, well done."

"Oh, so you _do_ have a heart! And you've also been able to box up two praises in one single speech. That's _awesome_…"

A perfectly clean and newly waxed Crown Vic stopped right in front of them.

"Indeed that's great, I mean, you're really making progress! A new, fully socially-interactive John Casey…"

"Don't get used to it!" he grunted.

"Get used to what?" asked Sarah coming out from the other side of the car.

"Nothing! Absolutely nothing!" almost shouted Chuck, slightly influenced by Casey's proximity, not to mention the gun that he quickly pointed at his back. The eyes wide open and the frozen grin on his face were quite expressive, tough.

"It's personal." asserted the Colonel keeping a straight face.

"You guys are somewhat scaring me now…" she admitted."C'mon Casey, help Chuck get in the car. We have a debriefing with General Beckman in half an hour."

The operation of putting her favorite nerd on the back seat should have been simple, yet Sarah couldn't do anything but stare with an incredulous expression stuck on her face at the scene that was taking place before her.

The two men were tangled in a way apparently incompatible with life, quarreling like two kids over a toy.

One was screaming "Ouch!" at every little move.

The other, instead, was shouting "You, moron!"

"Damn that Kung Fu!" both cursed in unison.

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"Why did you do that?!" said Sarah, reprimanding Casey after getting in the car.

"Personal satisfaction." He answered looking back through the rear-view mirror.

Chuck was innocently sleeping on the rear seat.

"And for a Greater Good, of course." As he was admiring the tranquilizer dart stuck into Chuck's neck, he cracked a smile. A pleased one.

Actually it was closer to a satisfied growl.


	2. Comebacks, Departures & Drunken Fish!

_Hi guys, I'm back with another chapter. Hope you enjoy it. _

_As usual: review__, review and review!_

_Chuck and all his characters are property of NBC_

_Updated__ (1): GEEZ! I didn't realize that the copy-and-paste action from Microsoft Word to this Document Manager made a mess of my story. For example all the '__**...**__' that I use so often went lost! (but I still received positive reviews, thanks for your kindness!)._

_Other major changes to the story flow (many many many thanks to Yokaputo for her tips!)._

_Most of them depended on my impatience to publish my work without polishing it. Sorry, my fault__!_

_Update (2): __corrections to plot, dialogues and grammar. Thanks again to __**kroblues**__ for his precious help._

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**The Castle**

"What… What the hell… Where…?" stammered Chuck when he woke up. "Sarah?!" he asked, with a vein of panic in his voice, blinking in an attempt to clear his blurry sight.

"I'm here, don't worry… Welcome back Chuck." she greeted him with a tender smile on her face, squeezing his hand lightly. He was lying on a bed while she was sitting by his side.

After a few seconds of bewilderment he realized they were in the infirmary of the Castle. The awareness of being in that homely place calmed him down a bit. Then he asked her, with a worried look, "Are you okay? Are you hurt?"

These last words left her stunned. He had just woken up and still he couldn't help but worrying about her safety "No, no, I'm fine… Why are you asking?"

"Well, since I'm in no way bleeding and we are in the infirmary… Wrong deduction I guess." he said, grinning with relief.

She smiled him back "This was the nearest bed in the Castle where we could lay you down. Casey was tired… You aren't that light, you know?"

"Casey tired? No way… At worst he was just annoyed!" He tried to get up on his elbows, but his muscles complained roughly "Ouch! Now I remember… The new Intersect… We were waiting outside the entrance… You went to fetch the car…" then he stopped "Hey, wait a minute, I don't remember how I came here…" he suddenly blushed, and stated with a bit of shame in his voice "I fainted… I knew sooner or later it would have happened…" he sighed with resignation, unable to look her in the eyes. "_Hero_ my ass…"

"No, no, you didn't faint." she strongly shook her head to emphasize her denial. "Actually things are a bit more, how can I say, complicated…"

"I don't understand, I couldn't possibly fall asleep without knowing it, after all the last events!" the confusion in his eyes grew up. "Did I crash like that?"

"Sort of…" she answered evasively.

"How long did I sleep?" but instantly a new question occurred to him. "Wait! _How_ did I_,_ exactly, fall asleep?!"

"Yeah, about that…" she cleared her throat. "Casey…Well, he played a major part in that."

"He _what_?! Please tell me he didn't use any of his tranq darts…"

"I _sure_ did!" Casey's growl interrupted them as he peeped out from the door. Then he added with a little bit of disappointment "Actually only one… Although I wanted to use many of them, maybe five or six. Luckily for you, Agent Walker held me back." he snorted.

"Oh God, my poor intoxicated neurones…" Chuck groaned.

"Oh come on, don't be a sissy!" Casey said, and then he glanced at his watch. "Let's go, it's time to make a report to General Beckman."

"It's easy for you to speak like that, since we are _not_ talking about _your _brain…" but he suddenly remembered shooting Casey three or four of those darts just a couple of weeks before, when he was trying to find Orion. "Ahem…" he gulped at the sight of the creepy snarl on Casey's face. "You know what? It doesn't matter, we'll act as if nothing had happened, okay?" he tried understating.

The Colonel came closer and whispered with a threatening voice "No, Bartowski, I have to shove at least two more darts in that thin neck of yours, to get even with you. Remember that."

Chuck unintentionally shuddered, therefore he gratefully smiled at Sarah when she interrupted them, shouting "You two, end this now!" despite the overbearing tone, she could barely keep from laughing.

"She's right, moron, time to go. You don't want General Beckman to lose her patience because you kept her waiting too long, am I right? Get up!" he barked and then grabbed Chuck and forced him to stand on his own feet, making him mutter something about pain, joints, muscles and, again, pain. Done that, he turned back and headed towards the main room.

Chuck staggered dangerously unsteady and winced as he tried not to lose his balance, but when Sarah offered herself as a crutch, a wide smile couldn't help spreading through his face, as he leaned against her. Her soft blonde hair were caressing his cheek, her scent delighting his nose, her firm grip around his waist… "Sarah?"

"Yes Chuck?" her blue eyes turned to him.

God, he could get lost into them. Masses of thoughts crowded his mind at that instant, far too many to even _try_ to express them. That wasn't the right moment to let out his feelings, so none of them came out of his mouth "Nothing, just… Just thanks." The stabs from his muscles were slowly fading away. Perhaps it was just thanks to her closeness.

"You're welcome." she replied in a whisper, looking away as her cheeks blushed slightly and her lips curved in a shy smile.

* * *

"What are your orders, General?" Casey asked.

The only answer he got back was a pondering silence.

"Ma'am?"

After collecting up her thoughts, she burst out "Your new mission consists of two main tasks: first you'll have to work out a new cover…"

"General, sorry for the interruption, but what do you exactly mean with 'you'?" asked Chuck.

"…second you'll have to assign yourselves to a suitable position that grants you the most complete freedom of action. If the Ring agents want war, then war is what they'll get…" she continued disregarding Chuck's question.

"General, sorry but I don't understand, does this mean that I won't be buried alive in a sort of 'preventive detention'?" retried Chuck anxiously.

But Beckman ignored him again "…besides with the death of one of our best men, Agent Larkin, we need to deploy all the field-agents we have…"

"Field-agents? Okay, got it… She's not talking about me…" stated Chuck with a note of discouragement in his voice. He looked sadly at his hands laying aside on the table, palms on the surface, but then Sarah grabbed his left hand in hers and smiled, nodding her head. _Everything will be fine._

"Mr. Bartowski" finally the General addressed him "Just in case you haven't realized it yet… Since _he_ is the only one who has free access to the Intersect, and since _he_ is the only one able to exploit its features, one of our best operatives at present is Agent Charles Carmichael. In other words: _you_."

An ear-to-ear wide grin lighted his face, quickly joined by Sarah's relieved smile. Casey, for his part, surprisingly released a grunt of approval.

"…But…" Beckman continued, freezing the smile on Chuck's face, "…you still haven't got the necessary field-training. You're still an asset, and as such you'll be handled. You're not allowed to perform any personal initiative. Colonel Casey and Agent Walker will take the hard work upon themselves."

"Oh, c'mon… That's not fair, you're taking all the fun away from me!" complained Chuck.

General Beckman ignored him and said "If there aren't any questions, the next meeting is arranged for tomorrow morning at 9 a.m., make the most of the time you have to elaborate your new cover." and without waiting for any reply she switched off the transmission and the screen went black.

* * *

**Casa Bartowski**

As Chuck and Sarah came in, hand in hand, Chuck's sister hurried straight towards them, inquiring with anxiety "Chuck, Sarah! Where have you been? I was really worried about you!"

"Sorry Ellie, we…" started to apologize Chuck.

"They were _obviously_ having fun in the oldest way, hon." chimed in Devon, putting an arm around his wife's shoulder and winking at Chuck.

"Eh? Oh! Ah…" burst out Chuck raising an embarrassed smile, while his cheeks blushed.

Sarah on the other hand did nothing but giving Ellie a knowing smile.

"Sorry but we've gotta go; we have to thank and say goodbye to our guests, most of them are already leaving." Devon reminded them, addressing mainly to Chuck's sister. Dragging Ellie off, he passed next to Chuck "I don't know what you did, but I'm sure you did an awesome job in both cases, bro!" he said and then he gave him a devastating slap on his back.

Chuck started and tried standing up as best he could, ignoring his muscles' complaints. Awesome surely had watched too many spy-movies… Reality was a bit different. Actually a huge 'bit'.

Ellie turned around again, halfway to the entrance. "Next time leave me a note and… Oh, well… Thanks, Chuck. Thanks for everything. You saved my wedding. Or, better still, you gave me my dream wedding… I don't know if I will ever be able to thank you enough." her eyes were almost glistening.

Still coughing for the Capt. Awesome's blow, he replied "Anything… For… You… Sis…" he gasped. "Oh God, I think I'm gonna die…"

"Charles." somebody put a hand on his shoulder. "Sarah. Thank God you two are safe. What happened? Did you find Bryce?" it was Stephen Bartowski, Chuck's father.

"Yeah." he sighed heavily. "But he… I… I'm sorry dad." Chuck said. His voice came out soaked in sorrow.

A look of concern passed through Steve's face "Why? What's wrong?"

"Bryce is dead. And this time he won't come back. Never again." revealed Chuck. His heart skipped a beat when he noticed Sarah's tear-misty eyes. He forgot that Bryce's death happened only a few hours before. "Sarah, I'm so sorry, I didn't want to…" he whispered in her ear, holding her tight with an arm around her waist. He was shocked too, but only as one can be shocked by death itself… Bryce had become a stranger to him six years before, mostly because of the hatred he himself unloaded onto him.

He looked down at Sarah. The entire matter was a far cry for her, though. She had hidden her reaction at his death under a personal grave in her heart, but in that moment, the only thing that Chuck knew for sure was that she had been deeply hurt by that tragic event.

He decided he would have done anything in his power to help her out. That was his personal oath to Bryce.

His father's worried voice interrupted his thoughts "You mean that they managed to kill the Intersect?!"

"No. They killed only Bryce."

"Damn! If it's possible, _that_'s even worse." cursed him, hardly managing to keep speaking in a low voice. "This means that they have the Intersect. We're all in danger!"

"Well… Actually things aren't so bad." he stated, torn between the need of telling him what he'd done and the fear of his reaction at it.

"How… How can you be so blind?!" he snapped at him. "They're going to find you and all your loved ones!"

"Dad, please, calm down and listen to me." he took a deep breath, gathering his courage. "Bryce told me to destroy the original one and I did it…"

"Oh, thank God!" Steve exclaimed.

"…but before doing that…" Chuck continued, quite unwillingly.

"No. That's not what I think. It can't be… Tell me you didn't do that…" Steve bid for, as he was getting more and more discouraged.

"…I re-uploaded it." Chuck admitted, after taking a deep breath.

His father sighed. "After all I have done to keep you away from this life, you dive into it like it was an Olympic game." Steve reproached him with an hard look in his eyes "You don't understand that, basically, two things can happen to you now: either the swimming pool could be empty and so the bump would be fast and hard, or there couldn't be any swimming pool and you'd realize you're jumping off from a skyscraper, and in that case you would come out completely a different man, a _worse_ one."

Chuck was staring at him with a disgusted expression "Yeah, more or less like a hamburger… Got it."

"I'm not joking. It's like bungee-jumping without any elastic. Like…" he was desperately searching for the most suitable words to make his son realize his error. "Like running towards the N.Y. Giants defense without any protection!"

"I see… I would come out like a meatball asphyxiated and soaked in muscular-men's sweat…" he shivered only at the thought of it, drawing instinctively back of a step. "Whoa! Horrific… No, thanks, I prefer the hamburger ending."

"You don't…" he stopped and his intense gaze softened. "I guess it would be pointless if I continued. You're as stubborn as your mother!" he shrugged his shoulders and then cracked a smile. "You're as pigheaded as me."

"Don't worry dad, I'll be alright. Besides I have Sarah and Casey by my side. They're the best." he grinned. And his wide grin turned into a wider beam when his eyes melt into Sarah's ones. "Absolutely the best…" he remarked, completely lost in his thoughts as she smiled back at him. After a few seconds of embarrassed silence, he continued "…the best to fight the Ring, of course." he said blushing.

"Who or what is the Ring? A cell of Fulcrum?"

"No, Fulcrum is almost dead." answered Sarah. Those were her first words since Chuck had mentioned Bryce's death. She was clearly still trying to find out how deal with it. "The Ring is another enemy intelligence agency. It probably acted deeply under the surface for the last ten or fifteen years, otherwise it wouldn't have such a well-ordered structure. And they must be quite skilled in order to successfully hide in the shadows like they did in the past ten or twenty years."

"Another secret organization? But how's that possible?" Steve asked incredulously, as his shoulders yielded a couple of inches, under the weight of the discouragement he felt, all of a sudden. He'd lost a crucial part of his son's and daughter's life in order to fight an evil criminal enterprise, only to find out that another one was just there, ready to take its place.

"We don't know the details… Actually, we don't know anything." Sarah confessed.

His father's reaction didn't escape Chuck, so he stated with growing conviction "Dad, I can understand your concern, but I'm here, have the Intersect in my head and I'm going to use it! They won't win."

Stephen kept looking down at the balls of his feet, slowly rubbing his nape with a hand.

"I made a choice, dad. For the very first time in my life I've been able make a choice. And I don't regret it. Maybe someday I will, but not now."

"Maybe… Or maybe not. Hopefully you've done just the right thing." he yield.

"Hey, that wouldn't be the first time!" joked Chuck, and then, hugging his father, he added with a smile, "Didn't you notice how easily we exchanged parts in this little discussion?"

"You're a smart guy, Charles."

"I knew it… Sarah already told me that." losing himself again in her blue eyes… _This happens a bit too often lately. _He thought._ But feels so good…_ "However" he said almost seriously, "Now we have a more important task. Harder than any before…"

Sarah and Steve looked at him with a questioning look.

"…we have to take Ellie and Capt. Awesome to the airport, put them on the _right _plane, then we have to come back and clean all the mess that our lovable guests left behind." he looked around the courtyard and added with a bit of disbelief "Not to mention the fact that first we have to pull out from the garbage bin the first piece of Jeffster and then we have also to take out of the fountain the second part of the glorious duo… With all the empty beer bottles Lester is swimming with."

They all laughed. It was a quite relieving laugh, that flew towards the stars in that warm night.

* * *

"Thank God, they are gone." stated Chuck, eventually resting on his bed, with his legs dangling from the edge of it.

Sarah smiled. "At a certain point I started thinking that Ellie would have never stopped greeting and over-pleasing us…" She was lying on Chuck's bed next to him.

"Yeah… And what about Devon? I've lost count around the fiftieth 'awesome' he said in a couple of minutes!"

They both laughed, dead tired, relaxing on the soft mattress.

Chuck was staring at the ceiling, not really seeing it. He was completely focused on the soft breath of the girl next to him.

All of a sudden, he felt the strong desire of confiding in her. Tell her the truth about how he was feeling. About her and about them.

His bravery probably depended on the bottle of sparkling wine they had just finished.

However, he had never been so confident about any other thing in his life. That was what he wanted.

_She_ was what he wanted.

She was all he had been fighting for in the last two years.

He managed to muster up enough courage for that last task. "I can't believe that I'm doing this for real, but… I have to." he paused to take a deep breath. "I love you Sarah Walker. I always did, since I saw you that day." then he stopped and waited there, with bated breath. He kept waiting, and as the time passed by he started feeling a deep empty hole growing in his chest, as his heart threatened to implode. He stood still, until he dared to ask "Sarah?".

No answer came from her, so he stood on his elbows to looked at her, and that simple move demanded even a bigger amount of courage, if possible. _Facing a refusal is always the hardest thing in love,_ he thought.

"Oh, damn that wine!" he cursed when he saw that the most beautiful girl in his world, the one whom he was madly in love with, had just fallen asleep next to him.

Probably just a couple of seconds before he opened his heart.

"I can't believe this actually happened!" he sighed.

Suddenly he felt every single ounce of his tiredness lying heavy on him. "Damn that sparkling wine." he whispered again. His tired and tipsy tongue tangled on the word 'sparkling' as he crashed asleep.

* * *

The soft morning sunlight was slowly spreading through the window, warming up their bodies and drawing fantastic figures with its shadow-dark ink.

Blades of light from the shutter were cutting the air in many parallel slices, while grains of dust were dancing in their golden spotlight.

As Chuck had woken up, the first thing he'd felt had been her hair softly brushing against the tip of his nose.

During the night he'd put an arm around her waist, as she'd nuzzled to him.

It had quickly become effortless for them to take that posture. Just two nights together and they'd ended up doing that naturally, as if they had always done it.

Their bodies fit in each other like they were a single, beautiful being, entangled in the sweetest embrace, tenderly shaped as the smoothest _S_.

As he laid down a kiss on the back of her head, the fruity perfume of her hair and the delicate scent of her skin passionately hit his senses, just like the awareness of his feelings.

She moaned softly when he gently bit her ear.

Encouraged by her pleased reaction, he followed the form of her neck with his lips, leaning a kiss almost every inch. He never dared opening his eyes. _God, please, let this be real, not just a dream._

As he moved towards her shoulder, his hand followed a reverse path, going from her belly to her hip, and rising to her chest.

He suddenly stopped, surprised, as he could feel through her skin the point of her heart tapping on his fingertips.

That sensation left him breathless for a while.

And then he opened his eyes…

"Oh shit!" he swore looking at the alarm clock. "Wake up Sarah, it's already half past eight!" he shook her grabbing her shoulders "We have only ten minutes before the meeting with Beckman starts!"

It happened all so quickly that he couldn't do anything: he suddenly found himself ejected on the floor with a beautiful blond girl astride on him… _That_ unfortunately was handling a gun pointed straight at his head. "Damn, I was right in the middle of a beautiful dream…" she said sleepily.

"Ah, as they say, 'let sleeping dogs lie'… even if they look _that_ beautiful…" he muttered, giving her his ten thousand watt smile.

Realizing what she'd just done, she moved away the 9mm and tried to apologize, "I-I'm sorry Chuck." she said as she stood up.

"No, _I'm_ sorry… I hope I didn't irreparably damage your gun…" said him nodding at the pencil _he_ or, to be more precise, _the new Intersect_ made him thrust rapidly into the barrel of her gun.

"No, you didn't. It won't leave any mark. Fortunately I didn't have to pull the trigger, otherwise the gun would have exploded in my hand…" she explained. "But don't worry, I had already noticed of your move." she stated to tranquilize him, showing a bright smile, "I'm not a rookie."

Then she helped him up and both said, smiling, "Let's go."

* * *

They ran outside the house but suddenly stopped, both staring open-mouthed at the Jeffster duo. "Oh God, we forgot about them!" broke out Chuck.

With a splashy sound Lester rolled on his side, grasping unconsciously at the pedestal in the middle of the fountain and starting to do strange moves with the hips.

"Is he really doing what I think?" asked an horrified Sarah, covering her mouth with a hand.

"This is definitely _far_ too much…" feeling sick at the sight, Chuck pulled Sarah out of the courtyard, towards the nerd herder.

They didn't say a word all the way to the Castle.

If they could talk, they would have probably called it post-traumatic shock.

* * *

**The Castle**

"You slept together_ and you kept your dresses on_?!" broke out Casey when they arrived, half a minute before the beginning of the meeting "Geez, Bartowski, you're a goddamn loser!"

"Better dressed and free than in half-naked and handcuffed to the bed…" teased him.

"Who was handcuffed to what?!" burst out General Beckman from the screen, all of a sudden.

"Nothing!" said the two in unison, overemphasizing their answer.

Casey turned quickly to Chuck miming with his mouth the words "I'll kill you!"

"Well, since you're so secretive, I'll act as nothing had happened." said the General with an unusual good temper. Suddenly however her expression became ice-cold, as she threateningly stated "_Provided that_ you have a very accurate planning for a new cover. Otherwise…" concluded leaving the last sentence at their imagination.

Chuck cleared loudly his throat "Indeed, we have it."

"Could you please let us share in your thoughts."

"Yes, Bartowski, we'd be glad if you decided to share with us your brilliant plan." growled Casey.

Sarah glanced at Chuck. She trusted him, so she was sure that his plan was going to be as smart as simple. The very fact that he dared to take the initiative like that, just before the General, was enough for Sarah to give him her support.

"Here it is: we're going to create a company that will assemble and/or build and then sell components for the supercomputers all over the world. In case my father decides to join us, we could also develop some advanced software for our customers. I'll ask him later."

Casey objected at that "No, that's a bad idea. He could draw the attention on us. After all he is Orion."

"Yes, but no one outside this room knows that. Well, at least no one _alive_. Besides he will just be part of our cover. No more field action for the old man…"

"Proceed, Agent Carmichael." Beckman spurred him on.

He smiled when he heard that name. Although he missed the old 'Mr. Bartowski' a little. "Yes, General. On the practical side, a small administrative building in town should be enough for both the producing unit and the development one."

She nodded approvingly. "I'll charge my staff to finding the most suitable arrangement." assured Beckman.

"Sarah… Er… Agent Walker will be the account executive, as well as the financial and trust officer. Apparently she learned a lot of useful things and tricks from her father…" he said, grinning at her.

"Indeed. Please go ahead, Agent Carmichael."

"Ah, er… Yes Sir! Oh, sorry, no, I meant… W-well….. Yes Ma'am!" Chuck stammered, as the General kept staring at him with an expressionless face. "On the other hand, Colonel Casey will be the security and counterespionage manager… And also the human resources manager." he paused to give him a brief glance, before adding "Though I'm a bit concerned about the fact that he probably will freak those poor 'human resources' out…"

Casey grunted, growled and spit out a 'Bartowski-you-idiot' in only half a second. Actually that was quite amazing, and he probably was the only one in the world who could do it, keeping at the same time a perfectly straight face.

"However, both of them will also be my assistant managers, so that nobody will wonder why we're always travelling together around the world on the company Gulfstream G650." he grinned.

Only the silence greeted him when he finished.

Moving impatiently his weight on the chair he confirmed "I… Uhm, I have finished."

Not a single word. Everyone was staring at him, but nobody said a word. Casey had one eyebrow lifted and a pensive look on his face. On the other side of the table Sarah cracked a smile which brought Chuck a wind of relief.

In front of him General Beckman had her brows knitted and was staring at a point a thousand miles on the horizon, clearly lost in her thoughts, probably processing the plan and verifying it's feasibility.

Chuck moved uncomfortably on his chair, clearing his throat a bit too loudly, but the General didn't move a single muscle.

"What's up with you, Bartowski?" asked in a whisper Casey, as gentle as usual. "I must warn you that my fingers are starting to itch."

"I know that she's staring at the horizon, and I wouldn't mind it normally… If only my head wasn't in the line of fire!" he explained in a low voice, "I mean, that expression on her face is really creepy…"

The Colonel shook his head and turned to the screen, quietly growling "Moron."

Chuck gave him an offended glance and turned again to the monitors. Suddenly he slowly started pushing his chair first on the right and then on the left, ascertaining that Beckman wasn't really staring at him.

"Now I feel better." he replied at Sarah's reprimanding glance, and then he gave her his famous eyebrow-dance, which made a smile rise on her face.

Finally General Beckman blinked and opened her mouth, preparing to give them their new orders, but Chuck didn't notice that.

He tried raising and lowering his swivel chair, but he immediately froze, as he realized that the woman's stony glance was now fixed on him for real. He awkwardly tried to regain his composure, while a sort of 'act-as-if-nothing-had-happened' smile spread under his wide open eyes.

"If a few seconds ago I had some doubts on what I was planning to say, now Mr. Bartowski gave me the absolute certainty that I will regret my next instructions…" she sighed trying not to lose her patience.

"Okay, okay, I admit that perhaps the Gulfstream was a bit too opulent… But everything else is…" his voice slowly faded out.

Releasing slowly her breath, the General completed the sentence "…good. Even without all the details, it seems to be a quite good plan. That's settled then, operation 'Bartowski Inc.' has been officially approved. Your team will soon receive the necessary funds to start the activity." and then she roughly ended the transmission, as usual.

A satisfied smile spread through the faces of the members of Team Bartowski.

"Back in action!" rejoiced Casey.

"She could at least say goodbye. The U.S. Army should do some training on politeness…" complained Chuck tilting-up on his chair.

Suddenly the screen again showed the glacial expression of General Beckman. "That would be a waste of time. Goodbye Agents." and then, without waiting for any reply, she turned off the webcam.

Chuck remained open-mouthed, paralyzed by his own astonishment, until he started swaying dangerously. Despite his wiggling (or maybe _because of that_) he couldn't avoid falling to the floor with a resonant head-blow.

"Please, tell me that you won't do this before our potential customers…" groaned Casey.

But Chuck wasn't really listening to him, and asked in a whisper "Does she _spy_ on us?! I mean, isn't that supposed to be _our_ job?!"

"Surely not yours…" answered back the usual Casey.

When Chuck got up again he found Sarah staring at him. "Chuck, why did you act like that?" she burst out "The only word to describe it is 'childish'!"

"That's not completely correct." denied Casey, but before Chuck could thank him for coming in his defense, he explained "I know at least _eleven_ other suitable words to describe it. Want me to list 'em?"

"No thanks, I pass." said Sarah raising her eyes.

"Me too" agreed Chuck waving his hand.

"It's a shame." With a sneer the colonel stood up and headed to the toilet. "If you change your mind, you know where to find me."

When he went out of the room, Chuck glanced at Sarah.

She was still waiting for an answer.

He shrugged "Who knows why I did that… I guess I was simply nervous. That woman could have buried me many floors underground in some government facility on the East Coast. Maybe it was only a reaction to the stress of the moment…" he paused to muster up the courage to continue "…or maybe I did what I did because I wanted to soften that tense expression that had darkened your face since the meeting started." he grinned.

"You…" she sighed, searching for the right words. She was trying to be honest, but she wasn't used to it. "That had nothing to do with the meeting. I… I guess it was just the dream I had tonight that upset me. But now it's not the moment for this kind of things. We have a lot of work to do."

Here it was. The signal. _'Work'._

She had shut herself away, and there was no way Chuck could breach into her thoughts right now.

A shiver ran down Chuck's spine. How was he supposed to tell her that her dream was real? He rubbed down the back of his head, wrinkling when he felt the growing bump under his fingers. Besides, at a deeper analysis, he couldn't be sure that she wasn't actually dreaming. Maybe about someone else. Like Bryce, for example.

As he realized what he'd just thought he felt disgusted by that. By himself and his own damn jealousy.

A tentative silence raised between them, as their relationship, the 'thing under the undercover-thing', was in a deadlock. None of them wanted to risk altering the precarious balance they succeeded to establish. Their thoughts were spinning in whirls, running parallel to each other. Both fearing that any other step closer could dig a dark abyss between them.

Both of them tried to speak. Both longed for speaking. Both their mouths opened a couple of times, but any sound slipped out.

As time passed the air in the room became so thick it could be cut with a knife as the tension grew up, but it was all swept away when, unexpectedly, both their mobile phones received the same text message from Casey. It sounded like 'Time to work, otherwise we'll be in serious trouble. BTW: I don't like surprises... are you two wearing at least your underwear?'

"CASEY!" they both roared at the same time.

Colonel Casey was sneering just beyond a couple of walls. Actually Chuck's message was a bit different: 'Time to work, otherwise we'll be in serious trouble. BTW: you two are still _dressed_? Loser…'


	3. Rainy Clouds Under The Sunlight

_Hi guys, did you miss me? Hope not… (I don't like __being under pressure ;)_

_First great news: I finally found a beta-reader, __**kroblues**__… In my -humblest- opinion he's doing a really great job, thoroughly polishing my messed up chapters, so you won't be plagued further by my tons of grammar errors. Still, some may occur, as I often don't think before doing something… Sorry for that, it's my fault!_

_S__ince kroblues offered me his help, we've been working also on the first two chapters, which turned out to be really screwed up._

_I've__ just re-__**uploaded a new version of both**__… So I suggest you to quickly reread them again, because I've changed a few things (for example, there's a bit more angst because, after all, Bryce's dead...) and they're at least 15% longer now… _

_I'll never be able to thank enough those who showed their appreciation despite my horrible writing style. On the other side I'll never be able to apologize enough to those who had the patience to read my story so far. (I know, I know, the first ones are included also in the second group… But I decided that they deserved a special treatment! :)_

_As usual I do not own Chuck (well, who knows, maybe this summer I'll get a part-time job and buy it… Yeah, and then I could produce a 3rd season of 87 episodes… Ah, the power of daydreaming__!)_

_

* * *

  
_

**Buy More,**** Burbank**

"He!" A loud cry gushed out from Emmett's throat. "He's going to be here soon!" he shouted, bursting into the home-theater room.

"Who the hell is going to be here?" asked Big Mike carelessly, sunk in the stuffing of his chair, without even looking at him. He was busy cleaning a stain of mustard on his green shirt with a napkin.

"Moses!"

"Did he bring the tablets I requested?"

"W-what…?" asked the other, totally confused.

Big Mike burst out laughing. "You know, the ones with the Ten Commandments… I'm such a refined comedian…" he stated, drying the tears from the corner of his eyes. And then, showing his serious expression once more, he stated "I don't give a damn if some Jehovah's witness is going to pester _your _customers for charity."

"You don't understand the seriousness of the situation!" Milbarge yelled at him. "Moses Finkelstein, Founder and CEO of Buy More is going to come in through _that_ door in a couple of minutes!"

Time seemed to stop.

Well, it stopped at least from Emmett's point of view, because Big Mike instead said, frowning, "Finkel-_who_? I'm sorry Milbarge, but I'm busy having my full-morning break."

Emmett rolled his eyes, with a dead scared look on his face, and hurried out of the room, shouting orders right and left.

Orders that no one followed, obviously. Not even when he climbed on the Nerd Herd desk and shouted "Obey me! Do it at least for the glorious nation of Buymoria, oafs!"

Big Mike, who had not moved from his armchair, shook his head. "Poor Milbarge… And yet I could swear I've already heard that name… Frinklenstain…" he muttered to himself, shrugging.

* * *

"We've got to get rid of that _corpse_, Jeff." stated Lester with a trembling voice. They were in the car-audio-installer garage, staring at the nerd herder parked in front of them.

The other nodded. "I _hic!_-hate to say that, but you're _hic!-_right." He'd been having the hiccups since he'd tried to break the record of their own version of the Fast and Furious 'fried-shrimps eating race' a couple of hours before. Fifteen standard portions in five minutes. He had not succeeded.

Patel looked up at him as to protest, but he was interrupted by a sound of steps coming from the corridor behind their back. "Oh, my God! We're dead!"

They turned just in time to see the door handle turning down.

With a roar, Moses Finkelstein, founder and CEO of Buy More, and his graded-bootlickers staff flooded into the room. They had assumed a triangle-formation, with the boss of the bosses being ahead of it.

He kept holding Emmett by his collar and dragging him around like he was a wheeled coat-hanger, while his burning eyes analyzed first Lester and then Jeff. "Who the heck are those two layabouts?!" he barked with a tone that made them freeze.

Emmett was asphyxiating, so he wasn't able to answer and the room was invaded by a heavy silence, interrupted only by the sound of paper sheets diligently leafed by someone on the other side of that compact barricade of assistants.

Lester paled, while his jaw was quivering slightly and his eyes were becoming damp. He was very close to fainting.

On the other hand, Jeff kept his drunken look and did nothing else apart from hiccupping a couple of times, with a dumb smile pictured on his face.

The silence lasted until an invisible assistant said, from the middle of the crowd, "The one that looks like an Indian lesbian is Patel, Lester. A nonentity, Sir. The other happens to be Barnes, Jeffery, our eldest employee. The dean of all the Nerd Herds, Sir. And yet the one with the lowest number of commendations."

Moses Finkelstein nodded and raised his free hand, as to impose an utter silence, and prepared to say something with a cold and severe look in his eyes.

But any word came out from his mouth, as he suddenly realized that the Nerd Herd business-car behind the two nonentities had something definitely wrong. The nose of the car was crushed, the front bumper was missing, as well as the hood, and they were replaced by a sort of fur with a pair of round, large horns rising from what seemed to be the head.

"What the heck is that…?" Moses Finkelstein asked, unable to believe his eyes.

"It's a deer." answered quietly Jeff. "Oh, well, actually it _was_ a deer. Now he's dead. We killed him, but it was an accident." he specified with a guilty look in his sad eyes.

* * *

A sudden, violent turmoil forced Big Mike to hurry out of the home-theatre room.

Nothing on Earth could have prepared him for the scene that occurred before his eyes. An injured deer was jumping over the DVD's shelving, smashing the display racks and devastating the shop.

All the customers and the green shirts in the room had already panicked and were running away in every direction.

Jeff was the only one running after the beast and shouting "He's alive, he's alive!" or "Oh my God, he's alive!" with all the possible variations on the theme.

Big Mike took a deep breath.

Someone had to do something extremely brave to save the situation.

He let the air out from his nose, widening his nostrils.

He ran back into his room and knocked over his armchair with a single blow. He took the harpoon-rifle he'd hidden under it, and ran out, shouting "For Buymoria!"

* * *

Fortunately Big Mike didn't kill any bystander.

His harpoon pierced just one foot. A foot in an expensive shoe. A shoe bought with a Golden American Express.

Moses Finkelstein's credit card.

However, Jeff also had a part in that, preventing Big Mike from hurting further the poor animal. Actually, Jeffery Barnes felt very proud of his action.

Almost like when he'd won the Missile Command contest.

Instead, Lester had remained in the car-audio-installer garage. He had lost consciousness when the deer had regained it.

* * *

**Unnamed ****Cemetery**

Two days had passed since that night.

All that time she'd been burying her feelings under six feet of work-stuff.

Rain was pouring down from a steel-gray ceiling of clouds. It had started falling at the same time as the coffin had started its descent to the oblivion of a bare grave, dug a few steps in front of her.

She was soaked to the bone.

An empty tombstone was waiting to finally become the silent guardian of Bryce's _real_ mortal remains. There wasn't any name written on it, only the plain epitaph 'Thus he served his country: with honor and courage'.

She was freezing, but the cold wasn't coming from outside. It was coming from her heart.

The cemetery looked bitterly empty at her eyes. She had been brought there by an anonymous black Suburban of the Agency, driven by an unnamed man that had left her there, alone.

No one else had been told about the funeral. To the rest of the world, Bryce had died two years before.

She was crying submissively. But the rain was hiding those tears, melting with them and dragging them on her cheeks, down her soaked hair to her shoulders. That branch of clear water carried those salty drops along her arms lying at her sides, and let them fall freely from the tips of her fingers.

No one could have told that some of all those drops were actually tears.

But _he_ knew that.

Chuck was walking amongst the hundreds of tombstones, heading towards her under his large, opportunely black umbrella. He was very elegantly dressed, with a plain black suite on a dark gray shirt and a darker tie. When he finally reached behind her, she straightened her shoulders and asked "How did you know?" stiffening up.

"That you were here? Oh, c'mon Sarah, I'm a spy. A spy's job is to _know_…" he answered, coming closer and shifting his umbrella over her.

The corners of her mouth bent a little upwards. "Chuck, how many times do I have to tell you to quit saying you're a spy?"

"I guess I'll just have to get used to it, sooner or later." Chuck said, softly and sadly smiling, while both of them kept staring at the grave, as if it was a sort of magnetic darkness at the end of the enlightened tunnel.

Then he glanced at her and decided to be as close to her as he could.

He put away the umbrella, letting the water soak his curly brown hair and slip under his coat. He looked up, facing the low and gray sky, and stood like that for a while. She did the same, and both their minds went blank while they tried to figure out how many were the raindrops falling towards them.

She closed her eyes, trying to focus on every single drop that hit her, but when the lump in her throat grew too big, she drew one step back, flinching as she got shoulder to shoulder with Chuck. Keeping her eyes shut tight and her mind far away from _duty_ and other excuses, she turned over and put her arms around his neck, hiding her face into the warm hollow between his neck and his shoulder.

He wrapped her with his coat, embracing her sorrow and holding her tight, as the rain continued pouring down thicker and thicker.

Two years before she'd managed to overcome her feelings, turning the pain into rage, as she'd found out that Bryce had been betraying his country, the Agency and, above all, _her_.

That had helped a lot.

This time it was just harder. She had no reason not to cry for him. A friend. Her one-time lover. A man who still loved her.

But Chuck's surprisingly solid body gave her the strength to react and choke back, at last, her tears.

"Do you want to share your thoughts with me?" asked Chuck gingerly, gently whispering in her ear. "At least someone…Maybe… Maybe this time it could be finally my turn to help you."

She sighed. "It's just… Some things are just hard to forget, I guess."

"Yes, I know, but some others aren't meant to be forgotten. Some are just there to remind us what's right to believe in and fight for. Or, if you prefer, what's right to be _heroes_ for." he shrugged, "Or at least to give it a try."

"When did you turn into such a wise man?" she asked slightly smiling, just a bit cheered up.

"When he…" Chuck said nodding to the grave, "…gave me the chance to make a choice. The first crucial one of my life."

She sighed and stood still, silently listening to the rain, grasping at him like a castaway to a buoy.

They didn't move for a while, until Chuck glanced at Casey's Crown Vic parked outside the entrance.

Sarah nodded and they headed towards it, less and less hesitantly at every step forward.

Every further step demanded less and less effort from her, as she was regaining her self control.

Suddenly Chuck broke the silence. "You know that Casey will probably lock us out?"

"What?" she asked confused.

"He won't let us wet the low-price tapestry of his beloved one's seats. We could be forced to spend the night in a cheap hotel, in a one-bath/one-bed room…" he pretended to be disgusted and shudder.

She laughed briefly. Half a laugh, still strangled by the last leftovers of her cry.

But it was nevertheless a laugh.

* * *

**Casa Bartowski**

As the red figures on the display shifted to 7:00 a.m., the notes of a song spread from the alarm clock on Chuck's bedside table. It was the unmistakable rhythm of Teddybears' Cobra Style.

Chuck yawned, stretching his arms above his head and slowly opening his drowsy eyes. As the bright morning sunlight made him close them again, a sudden thought hit him.

It was the awareness of Sarah's head lying on his chest, of her breath lightly caressing his skin through the thin fabric of his t-shirt, of her leg clasped on his.

He felt as if his fingers were awkward intruders among the soft wisps of her blond hair.

_My style is tha __bom digi bom di deng di-deng digi-digi…_

The awareness of the shape of her breast rubbing softly on his side, slightly moving up and down at every breath she did.

_carubuano peer with di bom di deng di-deng digi-digi…_

His heart was running so fast and skipping so many beats that it seemed to him it could match the crazy rhythm of that song.

She seemed to realize that too, as she stirred to reach a more comfortable position.

He couldn't help but smile.

"I always wondered, what the hell do those lyrics mean?" he said.

"Don't ask me, it's too early for me to even _try_ thinking." she moaned.

"Maybe it has some hidden onomatopoeic meaning…" he assumed.

"Or maybe the composer was just high. Are you always that articulate in the morning?" she muttered, while a smile rose on her pretty face.

"Has anyone told you before that you have a terribly sexy way of muttering?" he replied instead, unintentionally blushing.

"You see? It wasn't so difficult… _That_'s the right kind of questions to make the waking-up part more appealing!"

They both burst out laughing.

She gracefully rolled on her back, brushing her hair with her fingers. "Mhmm… We've gotta move, today we're starting the job interviews."

He sighed. "It'll be a long morning…"

At the sight of the arched silhouette of her body while she stretched among the sheets, he added "It will definitely be a never-ending morning… I have to take a shower." he stated getting up. "A _really _cold one." murmured to himself in a whisper.

Only a couple of minutes later a scream came from the corridor. "HEEW! WAY TOO CO-OOLD!" he shouted with a high pitched voice and his breath taken away.

* * *

**SuperC****omputer Management Inc.**

Sarah parked the Porsche under the black-glass windowed building just a few instants after Casey had arrived. They both had left the cars at the far end of the underground car park, as distant as possible from the frantic activity of the workers that were unloading all the necessary furniture and equipment from a couple of trucks.

Chuck smiled when he realized that, while Sarah did that to avoid hampering the workers, Casey did the same to prevent the workers from denting his beloved Vic. Of course.

They greeted as usual; Chuck was a bit too expansive and friendly towards the Colonel, who on the other hand let out nothing more than a grunt, just to point out that it was still morning.

The three took the elevator to the first floor, and after a short run, its doors opened in a large corridor. Every single thing collected in that space had written on it the words 'work in progress', in enormous letters. All the furniture and furnishing piled up here and there were wrapped with two or three layers of cellophane.

Team Bartowski ploughed through boxes of any dimensions and cables dangling from the ceiling.

But when they walked into the main entrance hall, a creepy sight stood out in front of them. "What the hell…?" Chuck exclaimed. Forty to fifty men were crowding the hall, occupying every square inch in front of the door to the room that they'd set up for the job interviews.

"Maybe we can try…" suggested Chuck.

"No! Forget the idea of making a breach to the front door." Sarah stated, with a worried look on her face.

"Oh my God. This must be a nightmare." said Casey, noisily gulping. "An horde of desperate, angry, well-armed and bad-intentioned, ready-for-anything work-seekers!" a cold shiver ran down his spine. "Walker, please tell me that you are heavily armed…"

"Nope, I've got just four throwing knives. I left the 9 mm in the car." she muttered.

Suddenly a single voice rose from an indeterminate point in the middle of the crowd. "Hey, Charles!"

Almost a hundred eyes turned to the three newcomers.

A veil of cold sweat covered Casey's forehead as he heard that lonely voice grew into a loud battle cry. "They spotted us!" he shouted trying in vain to keep his composure. "Retreat!"

The pack of beasts headed compactly towards them, with tens of hands frantically waving their already-filled-in forms.

The three agents quickly shrunk from the advancing mass of shapeless beings, flying out of the room, through the double door they'd come in. Sarah lost a few precious seconds to shut the heavy steel-reinforced panels and activate the security block. "Casey, take Chuck out of here!" she ordered.

"I'm not going anywhere without you, Sarah!" he yelled back.

But Casey barked "You're wrong, moron, I'm going to do as she says. And you too, wanting to or not!"

But before he could finish, Sarah caught up with them. "This should stop them…" she began optimistically, but when the sound of the assailants' blows to the door reached them, she added "…at least for a little while. Let's go!"

They resumed running breathlessly along the corridor towards the elevators.

* * *

"What the hell is going on there?" shouted the supervisor.

In the underground parking garage the workers had accidentally dropped a desk.

It was stuck right between the doors of the only useable elevator.

"Crap, it dented the sliding doors!" stated a man kneeled next to the site of the accident. "We'll have to saw it…"

"…and refund it to the owners. And the elevator as well." finished the supervisor. "Damn it! I only hope that the boss up there doesn't need this elevator for a while!"

* * *

"Why the hell isn't it coming up?!" shouted a hysterical Chuck.

Casey came back from his reconnaissance and reported "The stair doors are blocked by piles of furniture!"

After a couple of seconds the fugitives heard a crack and the loud thumping of their pursuers' steps flooding into the hallway, and Casey shouted "The enemy must have broken down the door! Chuck, call the reinforcements or we won't get out of here on our legs!"

"I've already raised the alarm because of immediate danger!" he replied breathlessly. "The support squad will be here at any moment!"

"Any moment could be too late." the Colonel stated with a dead-serious expression that revealed his true feelings. Bad feelings, actually.

Chuck had never seen Casey _that_ frightened before. Actually he had never seen him scared of _anything_ less powerful than a nuclear warhead.

That sight was enough for him to panic. The _nerd_ in him came out as he paled and started trembling and hyperventilating, while muttering something about the fact that there wasn't _anything_ awesome in being a _dead_ secret agent.

"Bartowski, you are the one who has the intersect in your head so, for goodness sake, _use it_!" barked Casey, shaking him from his fears.

Chuck blinked and nodded "Okay, okay, there must be something we can do!"

He turned over himself focusing on all the stuff that surrounded them.

He flashed on a fire-extinguisher. A devastating explosion. Steel fragments flying in the air. Blood splattered everywhere. Limbs torn from bodies. A devastating explosion.

"Woha! Oh my God!" he shouted, backing up one step. "You'll never guess how dangerous an extinguisher could be!" he said, wide-eyed.

He suddenly flashed again on a blowtorch. A gas cylinder. A fuse. Another explosion. The oxygen combustion reaction. Many bodies burned to a cinder. A gas cylinder.

He winced. "Geez! McGyver definitely won't be proud of the new Intersect!"

"Don't waste time, we're running out of it!" Casey reminded him.

"I know! Damn, if only I had brought my wrist computer!" he complained. But at those words his mind was hit by another flash. The plans of the building they were in. The load-bearing walls highlighted in red. The schematics of the out-of-order elevator. Both the extinguisher and the blowtorch. Another gas cylinder too. The weak points of the elevator wires. The same elevator falling down to the end of its rails. Another explosion in the cellar. The entire building collapsing on itself.

"Hell, no!" he shouted, blinking and shaking his head.

"Are you okay, Chuck?" Sarah asked with a worried look on the face.

"Yes, yes, it was nothing… But I have an idea!" he stated with a brainwave-like expression.

She heaved a sigh of relief. "Great, we're listening, go on."

"Casey and I will stay here…"

"What the hell does this mean?!" Casey burst out, about to lose his temper.

"…and will hold the assailants with that fire hose." Chuck said pointing to a hosepipe hanging on the wall behind Casey. "In the meantime, Sarah, you will climb up to the elevator roof and from there you'll have to crawl into the air conditioning duct. You'll head North-West, reach the entrance hall, go out, run to Lou's Shop, borrow that ticket machine they use to grade the customers and the related display, that with the red numbers…"

She nodded. "…then I'll come back and draw the crowd into the hall again. Got it!"

"Make sure you put the ticket machine in plain view. And… Be careful Sarah…" begged Chuck.

"No, be _fast_ Walker!" highlighted a worried Colonel.

As Casey was helping Sarah to climb beyond the trapdoor in the elevator, Chuck unrolled the hosepipe and then he ran about the corridor, looking for other useful weapons.

"Did you find anything?" asked Casey when he came out of the elevator.

"Sort of…" answered Chuck doubtfully.

He was holding in his hands a box of glazed donuts.

Casey was about to heap abuse on him but, as he opened his mouth, the enraged crowd turned the corner and headed for them like a sandstorm.

"What the heck!… Fire at will!" yelled the Colonel and Chuck obeyed, starting to throw the donuts to their assailants.

The first two shots were both too short.

But then it happened. The miracle they needed.

Casey couldn't believe his eyes: some of the men in the first line made a run for the glazed rings, kneeling down and causing those who were behind them to stumble with a devastating chain reaction.

"It's working!" he said, incredulous. "Keep slowing them down!" he spurred on, while was trying to put the fire hose into action.

"I'm running short of ammo!" cried Chuck.

"Done!" Casey finally announced with relief, "Get here and help me hold the tube!"

The water jet hit the target with a disarming power, but it still wasn't enough to make them withdraw. The two opposite forces stood there, facing one another for a couple of minutes, until a voice came from the entrance hall.

It was Sarah, talking into a megaphone. "Those who are here for the job interview are kindly requested to take a number at the appropriate ticket machine." She'd used the perfect imitation of a typical supermarket-announcer voice.

The two agents under siege shouted for joy, and in a transport of the enthusiasm of being alive, Chuck hugged Casey.

Bad error.

Chuck suddenly found himself hanging on the wall, with Casey's hands wrapped around his neck. "I do remember telling you something about men hugging and their men-parts, once… Don't you too?"

He nodded, gasping as he was slowly becoming red-faced.

But they were interrupted all of a sudden by a powerful explosion that blew down a piece of wall a dozen meters away from them.

The last rubbles were still falling down all around when an assault team of the Agency broke in, running through the dust cloud like a bunch of ghosts.

"Oh, no! My poor building…" groaned Chuck in between the coughs.

* * *

Finally the three agents had managed to reach the small interview room from the back-door. The room was supplied with a mahogany desk and four chairs, three on one side and the last on the opposite.

Chuck plopped down in the middle, while Sarah took place at his right and Casey on the remaining position.

"It'll be a long day…" Chuck stated, with a dead tired look.

Casey took the megaphone and shouted, half-heartedly, "Number one… Who has the number one?"

"It's me!" said a familiar voice.

A big, round, imposing black man was proudly standing out at the threshold. His clothes were soaked and dirtied with dust. Around his mouth lied the last remnants of the donuts he had managed to _save_ from the crowd… Well, _saved_ just before fulfilling their death sentence.

He ceremoniously leaned a big, plastic reproduction of a marlin against the wall, whispering "Sorry Norman, You'll have to wait here."

"Big Mike?!" asked the three agents in unison, not really believing to their eyes.

He raised his head, straightened his shoulders, pulled back a considerable amount of tripe and stated "Personally."

* * *

**Casa Bartowski**

"Sometimes you're just… surprising, you know?" said Chuck, admiringly staring at Sarah, as they'd just ended eating the flank steak with roast potatoes she had cooked that evening. "Really."

It felt nice to both of them to finally relax after that half-terrifying-half-boring day of interviews.

"Oh, c'mon, Chuck, you don't know what you're talking about. Your knowledge about cooking is, how can I say it… Well, _minimalist_." she stated smiling, trying to hide the red shade rising on her cheeks.

He nodded. "That might be true, but I know _who_ I'm talking about. And I definitely know what I like." he grinned. "And believe me _this_ steak alone is… _Was_ worth the whole Intersect thing…"

She threw him her napkin. "Exaggerated!" said laughing.

"Why? I'm just being honest." he stated while they both stood up and headed to the couch.

They dropped themselves on it, suddenly forgetting all the tiring events of that day, which was finally coming to an end.

She naturally huddled up to him, keeping her cheek on his shoulder and looking up at him.

Letting his eyes dive in the blue ocean of hers, he got lost in his thoughts for an instant, fantasizing on a life without spies and all their stuff.

But as deeper as he thought about it, Chuck realized that he couldn't help longing for her to be there anyway. No matter who or what was awaiting them along that road.

"Chuck?" Sarah called, shaking him from his thoughts.

Returning to the real world caused his last, imaginary parallel-reality to disappear into the crowd of infinite possibilities that had been recently filling his mind. Her soft voice made him blink twice, as he realized that he'd been rapt in his thoughts for about two or three minutes.

"Is there something wrong?"

A genuine beam, one of his most endearing ones, spread across his face. "No, no… I was just, you know, daydreaming."

As the corners of her mouth wrinkled upwards, Chuck asked "What's so funny about it? Aren't you spies allowed to indulge in fantasies too?" he joked.

"Not while we are on duty." she answered, but after a short pause, she continued "What were you daydreaming about?" she asked, with an air of amusement.

"You know, I'd tell you more, but then I'd have to kill you…" he said laughing. _Quite predictable_, he complained to himself.

"You could try, but I can tell you now that you won't succeed in your attempt. I can still kick your ass!" she stated, pretending unsuccessfully to be serious, but causing his laugh to freeze the same.

"Do you realize how creepy that sounded? Especially considering _who_ that came from!" he joked.

She shortened the distance between their faces, bringing their lips a little bit nearer. The tips of their noses were almost brushing against as she said sensually "Oh, c'mon Chuck, a penny for your thoughts!"

"Weren't you supposed to be on duty?" he said, badly trying to divert the talk.

She shrugged. "The Agency rules don't prevent us from asking some specific questions to our asset."

He laughed. "Oh, I bet General Beckman could list at least a couple of commas against that eventuality." he said, but wasn't able to resist further to her silent blue-eyed request, "Ok, you win… You're really good at interrogations, you know? Perhaps it could depend on the vast armory of convincing arguments God gave you…" he admitted causing her to burst out laughing. "However… I was trying to figure out how things could be if I had chosen some different paths."

"And? Did that lead you somewhere?"

He nodded. "Right here." he stated with firm belief. "I wouldn't change any of my decisions." he explained. But after a few seconds he frowned and added "Well, to be honest, there _is_ actually something I'd change… Something involving Morgan, a condom and me buying a padlock for my wallet." he explained.

They both laughed heartily, and both their faces blushed making them avert their eyes from each other.

They'd never talked about that night nor, particularly, about that morning.

Many other things had been keeping them busy.

_Maybe that was the right moment_, thought Chuck.

Chuck's iPhone started vibrating, as the ringtone called to him.

_Maybe not._He sighed. _Crap._

Sarah drifted away from him, enough to let him pull out his mobile phone from the pocket. "It's Ellie." he told looking at the screen.

Sarah stood up. "You should answer, then, or she'll go mad and drive Devon mad too." she joked, smiling. "In the meantime, I'll begin clearing away and washing up the dishes."

"I'll relieve you later, when Ellie asks for you." he promised, and then he brought the mobile to his ear. "Hi, sis! How are my favorite newly-weds doing in the Bahamas?"

"A bit better than usual, little bro!" she said enthusiastically. "You two would definitely like the sunny weather and the little-umbrella drinks!"

He sighed at the memory of the proposal he'd made to Sarah, just before Roark showed up that last time. He'd almost used the same words.

His sister noticed that instant of weakness and asked gingerly "What's up, Chuck? Is it all right?"

Chuck somehow managed to gloss over his reaction. "It's just… It's been a long day. Really." it was nothing worse than a half-lie.

"Tell me about it." she asked him.

"Well, I don't want to bore you with the details of life here in dear old Burbank…" he said reluctantly. "Besides you and Devon will surely have something more interesting to do… Like scuba-diving, snorkeling, getting pulled by a speedboat while hanging from a parachute… You know, the same _awesome_ things as usual." he smiled.

"Oh, actually… Devon has a stiff neck. He got it while he was _trying_ to windsurf…" she revealed, but in the background Chuck could hear Capt. Awesome shouting "I was being successful at it, hon… Don't believe her, bro!"

"I'm sorry for his accident, that's…" begun Chuck.

But Ellie was faster in ending the sentence. "…_awesome_, Chuck! At last now we can relax! You'd never tell how lovely Devon is when he's _less_ awesome…"They both burst out laughing.

"Oh, I do, sis… I do!"

"C'mon, Chuck! Tell your big sis what tired you out that way."

"Oh, well…" he sighed. Sooner or later she'd have known that, anyway. "Today we held the job interviews."

"That's great! There were many candidates? Someone you knew from Stanford? Have you already chosen someone suitable to work for you? Did you take only the best ones?" she started firing questions at him. He could imagine her, hopping for joy on the bed and clapping her hands. He couldn't help but cracking a smile.

"Actually we've already hired some employees…" he said.

"Oh my God! That's awesome!" she exclaimed, and then she repeated the news to her husband, who couldn't help but say "You said it, hon, it's awesome! But, please, now stop making me bounce on the bed…"

"Oh, sorry, honey, sorry!" she apologized, leaning down to kiss his forehead. "Go ahead Chuck; do I know any of 'em?"

"Ah, maybe… Some…" he said, clearly hesitating.

"Chuck? Just let me know: do I have to pull their names out of your mouth with a pair of pliers? Or will you cooperate?" she threatened half-seriously.

"Er… Well, there's…" he cleared his throat loudly, "…Michael Tucker…"

"I don't… Wait, _Big Mike_?! _That_ Big Mike?!" she asked, disconcerted.

"Not exactly the same Big Mike, you know… He said he'd lost a bit of weight, so it's a _lighter_ version of him…" he said, trying to take the heat out of the situation. But as he dared laughing her growl immediately froze him.

"I suppose there was a good reason, a _very _good one, forcing you to do that." she buckled under, hardly managing to hold her composure. Through his ear, Chuck could feel his mobile phone reaching an arctic temperature.

"Well, you see, there was this misunderstanding with this guy, who happened to be Moses Finkelstein, the founder and CEO of Buy More… However, to make a long story short, he fired some of the employees…"

"I don't know why, but this doesn't leave me stunned." she commented, in an ironically icy-cold voice.

"Well, what could I do? He came there and made me that weird speech about an offer I couldn't refuse and…" he frowned thinking about it, "…and about some other things that I actually didn't get completely. Something involving the _family_, the head of a horse and my bed…" he shrugged, "Oh, and also Morgan's mother, but I think that that time he was referring to _his_ bed…"

She sighed. "Who else?"

"What?" asked back Chuck, as if he was astounded.

"You said that he wasn't the only one fired. Who else?" she asked again.

"Really?! Did I say that? Oh… Well, ehm, Emmett Milbarge, for example. His job interview cost us at least two boxes of tissues…" but as he realized that no sound was coming from the phone, he asked "Ellie? Are you still there?"

He was hoping not but, unfortunately, she answered. "I know you Charles Irving Bartowski. You're hiding something. Now talk." she imposed.

He slightly shivered as he dropped the bomb. "Jeff and Lester."

A creepy silence greeted him at the other end of the cable. God bless that cable.

Now he could imagine her standing on the bed, her eyes wide opened, the mouth half opened, a couple of arteries pulsing on her temples, clenching and unclenching one fist, while the other hand was grinding the receiver.

"That's _really_ funny. Nice try." her tone said what she thought of it. "If it's a joke, I must warn you that I'm not having fun."

Ice stalactites were growing longer from the iPhone.

Chuck didn't know what to say to get out of that situation. He glanced at Sarah, but she continued washing up, with an _I-told-you-that_ expression pictured on her face.

"Why?!" Ellie asked all of a sudden. Her voice was quivering as if he did that on purpose to hurt her.

"Why? Ah, well… That's a good question…" he stated, thinking back to that morning events.

* * *

_**Interview room**_

_"If you hire us, I promise…__" begun Lester, with a conspiratorial tone, leaning forward over the table."I promise we'll share with you half of the commercial incomes of the Jeffster, and half of the earnings from our royalties." _

_"What?!" complained Jeff, who was standing right behind him._

_"Shht! Shut up, oaf!" Lester hissed, grabbing Jeff from the collar and putting his forefinger before his mouth. "If you don't agree, the trade agreement will be worthless." he whispered a bit too loudly into Jeff's ear. "Got it? We're gonna be rich!"_

_"Oooh!" exclaimed Jeff, winking and giving him a little nod._

_Lester turned again to Chuck, deliberately ignoring Sarah and Casey. "Besides__, you'll have in homage the permission of fully exploiting the Jeffster brand…" he revealed triumphantly, "Just imagine for a second: you could freely talk to your friends about us, the Jeffster, without having to worry about paying us five dollars every time you say the magical word…" he made a catchy pause, and then, spreading his arms with emphasis, he burst out "Jeffster!"_

_"W__hhoah!" completed Jeff, imitating a background crowd into ecstasies._

_"Wait, wait, wait__ a sec, guys!" interrupted Chuck, "Why would I ever need to talk about the Jeffster?!"_

_Jeff answered him "__To charm beautiful girls, for example, we are pretty well known in the circles that matter… And, above all, Beer would give you 'her' best froth, believe me, mate…" he said with lascivious eyes, winking._

_"However, __Charles, it's five bucks." stated Lester leaning against the table, stretching out a hand with the palm turned upwards to receive the payment. "We accept bank cheques too."_

_

* * *

  
_

"I can't believe they convinced you just threatening to force you to pay for a thing you didn't have to pay!" Ellie reproached Chuck on the phone. "And for what? Five piteous dollars?"

"Well, actually at the end they had increased to ninety-five…" specified Chuck.

* * *

_"Five bucks, please." repeated Lester._

_"What?! No! In your dreams!" Chuck protested. But as he saw the lustful grin that grew upon Jeff's face, he paled and quickly corrected himself "I-I mean, not on your life!"_

_Jeff's smile cooled down._

_"Besides," continued Chuck with a sigh of relief, "you don't have any royalties of any kind! You don't even play any original songs! Not to mention the fact that there isn't any 'Jeffster brand'…"_

_"Oh, it will be, mate, it will be soon…" said Jeff, winking with a weird glint in his eyes._

_"Listen up, guys, the answer is no, because…"begun Chuck._

_A scared look flashed through Lester's face. He suddenly interrupted Chuck and ordered "Plan B Jeff, plan B…" _

_At his words Jeff's expression changed into that of a very sad, hardly-beaten dog._

_Left wordless by that scene, Chuck needed a couple of seconds to recover his voice. "You know, it doesn't… Your 'plan B' doesn't work at all. Has anyone ever told you that, before?"_

_Jeffery gave his head a little shake. "Nope. The only interview I've ever done was the one for the Nerd Herd job. Almost twenty years ago. I guess they took me on because of my recent fame of Missile Command champion."_

_Lester sighed. __"Okay, it was not my purpose to come to this, but you don't leave me any other choice…" he fell on his knees with an imploring look, immediately followed by Jeff. "We beg you! Please, please save us! Otherwise that sadistic and workaholic oppressor of Moses Finkelstein, founder and CEO of Buy More, is going to send us to the branch shop of Barrow, Alaska… Northern Alaska!"_

_"We're gonna die of cold and __deprivations!" Jeff marked up._

_Lester nodded. "A land-of-no-one, with a population density of less than a third of inhabitant per square mile! And how many women do you think there are?! I'll tell you: NONE!"_

_"Not a pretty one, at least…" specified Jeff, slightly nodding._

_Lester got closer to Chuck, almost lying down on the desk. "I'm going to be the closest thing to a woman that those rude woodcutters ha__ve ever seen…" he took a deep breath, "I'll have to cut my hair to survive!" he screamed._

_"Besides," added Jeff, "A friend of mine told me that the cousin of a pen-friend of his girlfriend's mother told her that he has seen on TV a documentary where they said that in that godforsaken place…" he gave a strong shiver, with a terrified look on his face, "…they don't even know Beer!"_

_Not knowing what else to say, Chuck stated, with wide-open eyes "I-I'm so sorry…"_

_"Me too. They have only whiskey. It gives me aerophagia." the other revealed, with an annoyed grimace on his face._

_Both Chuck and Sarah looked at him with a disgusted expression, while Casey stood up from his chair and went out of the room without saying a word. He was just grinding his teeth and whistling like a teapot._

_Patel__ poked at his sidekick, "That's not the way to impress our future-employers, bubala!" he said between his teeth. Then he forced a smile on his face and leaned again toward Chuck "Do you know how he…" Lester creepily whispered, pointing at Jeff, "…behaves when he is sober?"_

_Chuck __paled and gave a short fake laugh, "No, I…"_

_"Me too!" Patel yelled, "And I want things to remain as they are!" and, glancing at Jeffrey over his shoulder, he added in a lower voice "I must admit that sometimes he scares me, like… Like…" he was searching for the right words._

_Chuck narrowed his eyes, taking a hard look at Jeff. His bizarre hair was as tousled as usual, floating to three main directions, as he was exploring the room with his eyes. His tie was lying on his shoulder, thrown behind like a scarf._

_"…you mean, like a Pandora's vase?" Chuck whispered back with a complicity tone._

_"Exactly!" shouted immediately Lester._

_

* * *

  
_

"Stop it!" burst out Ellie, exasperated, sighing. "You'll never change, won't you?"

He could _hear_ her smiling, as he answered "I'm sorry, sis, no… Anyway it would be impossible for me to get better than what I am… I'm already a top-notch Bartowski!"

He could hear Sarah laughing briefly behind him, from the kitchen. The warming-up effect that her laugh had on his heart took him by surprise.

"Listen, sis…" he continued, after an instant, "I know that hiring those two seems a bad idea, at first sight." he frowned, "Well, yeah, also at second, third and… And maybe, fourth sight… But we can trust them." he stated. "Sort of."

"Oh, you're right. _Perhaps_ they won't _kill_ you. But I can't even imagine how deep they can bury your new-company profits!" she sighed. "I need some comfort from another female voice… By the way, how are things between you and Sarah?"

He thought at all the sweet waking ups he'd had in the past few days, cracking a dreamy smile at those memories. "Just… Great." was everything he was able to say.

"Are you sure that working everyday side by side with her is the right thing to do? I mean, if things get… _complicated_, it could be hard to forcefully have to be so close at her."

"Ellie, I…" he glanced at Sarah, holding back his tongue, "I can trust her," he stated. "Besides, I found out that she has many hidden…" he frowned as he saw Sarah raising her right leg on a chair and putting one of her throwing knives back in its place, "…qualities!" he ended with a hesitating voice. A smirk widened on his face as he slightly shook his head. He was slowly getting used to all that spy stuff. "Everything will be all right, sis, don't worry."

"You must be right," she yielded, releasing a deep breath, "Maybe I'm just being a bit overprotective. I guess it depends on the fact that I know you, and I know how quickly you can mess up with anything…"

"Oh, thanks, sis, that's _really _comforting!" said Chuck, pretending to be offended.

She laughed. "Now let me borrow your girlfriend for a while, bro!"

Chuck smiled and turned to Sarah, calling "Hey, pretty blue-eyed girl, my talkative sister is asking for you… But I must warn you: she hasn't been chitchatting with any other woman for five _looong_ days."

"Oh, c'mon Chuck!" moaned his sister's voice from the receiver.

He smiled, "Okay, see ya', sis. And give my regards to Awesome. Hope his stiff neck gets better soon…"

"Perish the thought! I need this vacation to be as relaxing as possible!" she said and both laughed. "Bye, little bro! Take care of yourself"

"You bet!" he said tossing Sarah the mobile.

* * *

Half an hour later, Chuck was walking around his room with a linen basket, picking up the clothes that needed a run in the washing-machine.

Whereas, Sarah had locked herself in the bathroom, finally having a shower after that long day.

Chuck sighed.

He was seriously taking into consideration the idea of deafening the bath. The sound of the water jet was driving him mad. Well, actually that depended on the fact that he could _vividly_ imagine it hitting _her body_. He had already seen that sight, once.

He sighed again when the water flow stopped.

Suddenly a familiar voice came from the window. "Heart-problems, brother? Love gives you a hard time?" asked Morgan sneaking in. "Your personal psychotherapist is right here. Just lend me a pen…"

"Hey Morgan," greeted him Chuck, "No, thanks, I'm just tired. What's up, mate?"

Grimes frowned, sitting on his bed. "It's incredible, if you think about it…"

"What?" asked Chuck.

"You know, all this thing of leaving, flying to the Hawaii, _growing up_… I can't believe I'm really abandoning you here."

"Oh, c'mon Morgan! We're like brothers. We'll always be. Things won't change just because, from the next week, there will be two thousand and five hundred miles of Pacific Ocean between us…"

"You know what, Chuck? This way, things look even worse than they really are!" Morgan moaned, frowning. But then he narrowed his eyes and gazed at Chuck's bed. "Wait, what's _that_?" he asked, pointing to Sarah's purple silk nightdress. "Wohoo!" he exclaimed with a nod of approval. "You're planning a really _hot_ night, aren't you?" he winked. "Now I understand. That sigh of yours was a sigh of _impatience_, waiting for your beloved one to come and warm up your bed!"

"Actually, she is already h…" Chuck begun saying.

But Morgan wasn't listening. "Let me try it." he said grabbing the dress.

"Don't you dare!" threatened Chuck, between his teeth, trying to keep a low voice. "Give it back to me, _now_!" ordered him, flying at his friend.

Morgan managed to dodge Chuck's assault. "Oh, c'mon Chuck, I won't ruin it." he assured, wearing the nightdress on his shirt. "It's a bit tight on my chest…" he said pushing up with his hands an imaginary breast.

Chuck clenched his fists in mid-air. "Ok, Morgan, you tried it, now take it off. What were we saying about 'growing-up time' and other stuff like that?"

"You see, that's the problem, I'm not sure I want to 'grow up'…" he gave his head a little shake, sliding a purple strap of the dress beside his shoulder. "I'm really the sexiest thing you've ever seen, aren't I?" he burst out laughing, "Just joking, mate! Of course Sarah is sexier!"

Chuck sighed "I don't find it hard to believe you when you say that you don't want to grow up… Especially if you say that wearing a woman's dress." said Chuck. But before any of them could add another word, a door opened in the corridor, and a voice came from it.

"Chuck, do you know where's your sister's hairdryer?" asked Sarah.

"Oh, it's Sarah…" Morgan said, startled, hastily trying to take off the dress that had fallen around his ankles. "Why didn't you tell me she was already here?!"

"I tried, Morgan! Get out of here _immediately_!" Chuck ordered in a low voice. Then he cleared his throat, awkwardly trying to get an act-as-if-nothing-had-happened voice, and turned towards the door. "No, I'm sorry, Sarah. I, ah, I think she packed it with her suitcases." he said.

"Oh, what a pity. Tomorrow I'll have to pass by my hotel room and pick up mine." Her voice, as well her steps, were dangerously getting closer to the bedroom.

Inside Morgan was jumping around the bed on one foot, while the nightdress was wrapped around the other. "Oh, God, I got stuck!" he muttered, almost panicking.

All of a sudden two things happened.

First one: Sarah walked in, wrapped in a barely-large-enough towel and rubbing her soaked hair with another smaller one.

That sight would have been breathtaking, if only Morgan had not fallen to the ground, right in front of her. Second thing. Less breathtaking.

"Hey, Sarah, how are you? Nice to see you…" he tried to sound as usual. "From down here…" he gulped loudly.

"Morgan!" she shouted, holding her towel tighter. And then she hurried back into the corridor, towards the bathroom.

"I'm so sorry Sarah, I didn't reach this position on…" Morgan tried to apologize, but before he could complete his sentence he was interrupted by the blow of the door slamming behind Sarah's back. "…purpose." he ended.

Chuck took a deep breath and said ironically "Well, great. Thanks for your help here, mate. But…"

"I know, I know, I'm going home… Time for me to go!" he stated, finally dropping Sarah's nightdress on the bed and getting out through the 'Morgan's door'.

Chuck couldn't help but smiling. "See 'ya tomorrow, Morgan." he said goodbye to him.

"You can count on it!" he shouted from the courtyard.

But after a couple of seconds Chuck could hear him muttering to himself "Damn it, if only I had fallen one step _closer_…" he clenched his fist, "A taste of _heaven_! Just one step away from me! Damn!"

"Morgan!" yelled Chuck from the window, "I can still hear you!"

"Okay, okay mate, got it… Goodnight, lucky man!" he said, waving his hand in the air, while jumping on his bike.


	4. Tropical Fruits From The Blue

_Hi guys, I'm back again! _

_This is a rather short update, but don't worry, there will be more soon! Just to pique your curiosity!_

_As usual, thanks to those who kindly awarded me with their reviews and, above all, thanks to __**kroblues**__, my peerless beta-reader! You surely have a lot of patience, pal! _

* * *

**Casa Bartowski**

Sarah could feel Chuck moving slightly between the sheets, in the darkness behind her back. He was unsuccessfully trying to pretend he was asleep, but she knew he was restless.

They both were.

Only her wide-open eyes, her clenched fists rumpling the sheets and the beads of cold sweat on her forehead could prove that she'd just woken up from a nightmare.

_Another_ one, in which she'd been holding Chuck's lifeless body in her arms. It had seemed to her that she'd been trying to staunch his bleeding for an eternity, despite only half an hour had passed since she'd crashed asleep.

An eternity while she'd felt his warm skin slowly turning cold and pale.

A sudden thought crossed her mind;_ he'd lost so much blood…_ His blood had been leaking between her fingers, and she hadn't been able to stop its flow.

In her nightmare she'd missed a long distance shot and an enemy agent had lived long enough to target Chuck and hit him. Just because she'd failed her task.

_It's my job to protect you_, she thought, involuntarily clenching her teeth.

_Great __'job' I'm doing, really_, she continued sarcastically.

Even when she looked back, she couldn't find anything but tactical and professional lacks in her behavior. And selfishness in her decisions.

Absolutely nothing was right.

Starting with the very first time they had run a really serious risk, that _sweet_ morning after their escape from Burbank, when she had ingenuously dropped her guard. That had resulted in Chuck risking all he'd got, his freedom, his life, his beloved ones. It had been her fault. She had completely forgotten that they were a couple of fugitives, and had gotten carried away by her dreams. Dreams she'd willingly borrowed from _him_. Dreams of a real, normal, boring, desirable life.

_Never mind_, she had said herself, at that time, _all ended up in the best way_.

Luckily.

Again, the night after Ellie's wedding the Ring agents had captured her. But Chuck had jeopardized his life once more and, no matter what he'd said; Sarah knew she had had a big part in that.

He had made a choice and, after all, he'd saved her. He'd taken the right path.

_Luckily_.

Finally, just a couple of hours before, Morgan had taken her by surprise. Neither because she was almost naked nor because he was wearing her nightdress, but because she was _unarmed_.

_We were completely, dangerously exposed,_ she thought, and that happened only because for an instant she had felt just like a girl with _her_ boyfriend, _their_ relatives, the usual light housekeeping to do _together_, and without any other concern apart from finding out how to light his precious smile again.

What if the guest had not been Morgan, but an enemy agent?

_Yes, that eventuality was not very likely__…_ she had to admit, _well, perhaps it was totally unlikely,_ but she knew from her own experience that hers wasn't simple paranoia. During her latest years as a spy, she'd often seen people die just because a gun wasn't in its place, within reach of a hand that was supposed to hold it.

They had just been lucky once again.

Sarah Walker, Jenny Burton, Katie O'Connell, Rebecca Franco, and all the other girls or women she had been acting as, had one thing in common: they all had always hated Luck.

They'd always relied on ability, skills, prowess, readiness, and so on. A bit of improvisation was allowed, sometimes.

But not Luck.

Sarah held her breath for a second, as she took her most difficult decision.

_One mission at a time._

She suddenly realized that her jaw muscles were starting to ache, so she slowly released their clamp.

All she could do was hope. Hope that he could wait for her. And hope that there was some happy-ending waiting for them, somewhere in the obscurity before them. But all she knew was that someday that one mission was gonna end. Somehow. She slightly shivered, subconsciously refusing to consider all the possibilities, as she was supposed to do instead, accordingly to her training.

_I'm sorry Chuck_, she both thought and whispered, in a voice low enough to be barely audible to herself, wishing for his forgiveness.

In the end, she persuaded herself that she'd made the right choice and that awareness let her fall asleep at last. But as a dreamless night embraced her, she felt the urge of wrapping herself up tighter in the bedclothes.

* * *

**The Castle**

Chuck stretched himself on his usual chair, smothering a yawn. Last night had ended up as usual, lately, since Ellie and Devon had left for Bahamas.

He'd had serious problems falling asleep, with Sarah so close to him.

Actually that wasn't an issue at all, because the following awakenings had always been great. As a matter of fact, in a couple of days he'd went through a succession of the best awakenings of his life, that had never left him tired and yawning.

But not that morning.

When he had woken up, he'd felt a _cold_ he wasn't used to anymore. Sarah had already got up and he'd found her in the kitchen, reading the newspaper. _That_ was the problem.

It had felt like she was holding it more like an anti-riot shield.

As he had been able to realize later, she'd suddenly become distant, somewhat _colder_. Her voice and her face had become expressionless, wearing a working-mode mask even when they were alone.

She'd kept answering him with just yeas and nays.

As Casey walked in, the sound of his steps shook Chuck from his thoughts.

He was coming from the tunnel that led to the Buy More locker room, so Chuck asked him "What were you doing on, ah, _under_ the holy ground of Buymoria?"

"I was just making sure that that entrance would be blocked forever." said the other.

Chuck nodded, and looked around the room they were in. Some Agency technicians had already removed a couple of monitors and computers, and the empty spaces were revealing the gray concrete wall crossed by dangling connecting cables. "You know what? I'm gonna miss this place," said Chuck, sighing.

"Why?" asked Casey, "The new Castle, under our new cover-company building, will be handier for us, not to mention the fact that it'll be simply… better. Better equipped, better positioned, safer…" he started listing.

Chuck brushed a hand in the air, "Okay, okay, Casey. I think you made it clear enough that you have a place in your heart only for your new old-Crown-Vic."

Casey smirked.

Chuck went to reply, but Sarah's voice suddenly called him from behind his back.

"Chuck?" she said, taking him a bit by surprise, as she had silently sneaked into the room. "I need to talk to you."

Something in her tone of voice made him freeze. Something beyond words. His eyes tried to cold-shoulder the fears of his heart, pretending to ignore the emotional-health-danger neon signs, but failed miserably to remain expressionless. He could just turn his head and nod slightly, and then he reluctantly followed her into the armory.

Sarah had been staying in that room for the previous half an hour, thinking. She'd been trying to gather the necessary coldness to do what she had planned to do.

Once, Chuck had said her that she was _a girl or, more appropriately, a woman_ that could kick the ass of all the people crowding the restaurant they were in.

But the truth was that there actually was _one ass_ she couldn't possibly kick. Because she didn't want to, not only because someone ordered it.

And now she was purposely heading straight for that, in a way.

When they were alone, Sarah spoke again, and she was deadly incisive. As she'd planned to be. "Listen Chuck, I need a break. This whole task is not the best thing for me, just now." Then she bit her tongue to prevent herself from shouting _don't believe me, Chuck, it's all a lie, _and continued "Today I'm gonna ask for a reassignment." _Stop me, save me from myself, please!_

A painful emptiness spread in Chuck's chest, threatening to cause him to implode. After a couple of seconds a single strangled word came out from his dried lips, bringing with it a million untold questions. "Why?"

He had already considered that eventuality before, but lately he'd been more and more sure that Sarah would have done everything she could to stay beside him. At least since he himself had finally come to blindly trust her.

His worst fear was that the Government could suddenly decide to bury him several floors underground, pulling him apart from her.

"I…" she stopped to take a deep breath, "I'm asked to look after you, but now I have to take care of myself… "_ Sarah Walker, you're an idiot! _she scolded herself,_ couldn't you find a better excuse? What do you think your father would say if he could see you right now?_

"You don't really expect me to swallow that, don't you?" Chuck said, coming a step closer, and gently but firmly grabbing her shoulders, "Sarah, please…" he begged, "Please, just let me help you, I know I can. Don't…"

She vigorously shook off his hands and backed a few steps from him, putting the table between herself and him, "My skills are lapsing, getting worse. I'm becoming dangerously used to the routine and I'm getting more and more often distracted…" _by daydreams of us,_ she silently ended, but said instead "Your safety is supposed to depend on me, but I'm falling and I could take you with me."

"I can't… I can't understand. What the hell are you talking about, Sarah?!" he yelled, unable to restrain himself. His eyes were lost in confusion. _Can it be Bryce's death? _he asked himself. _He has already moved us away from each other, a couple of times. Could it be his ghost coming back?_ He violently shook his head,_ no, this can't be._

Sarah raised his voice to get his attention back, "Chuck, I could fail at any moment and you could DIE!" _and I would die too_, she thought, shouting "Don't you get it?!"

She was panting.

"Sarah, what…" he objected with a cracked voice, "What happened to you? Just yesterday everything was fine, and now everything seems to be wrong!"

Breathing was becoming heavier and heavier, and she felt that she had to end it quickly. "I evaluated the situation, and I found out that I'm no more suitable to this assignment." she said, "Besides I realized that I need to avert this 'thing under the undercover thing' for a while…" she said, hastily swallowing the lump in her throat, "_If_ there is something."

In the exact moment she let them out, Sarah cursed herself for those last words. They were simply unnecessary, a gratuitous stab in his back.

He took the blow, wavering in a haze for an instant. His burnt throat seemed to set on fire also his eyes, and the couple of tears that came out to extinguish the flames couldn't do anything but hide themselves in the corners.

Sarah did her best to restrain herself from moving around the table and holding him tight, telling that it was nothing but a cruel joke. His anger could have been less painful than his grief.

He shut his eyes, squeezing his eyelids and softly shaking his head. He was doing the only thing he could do. He was trying to _wake up_.

He would have undoubtedly preferred the nightmare in which she had tried to kill him.

Then he opened his eyes, and in that very moment he _felt_ the blow, as he realized that not only everything was real, but also that Sarah had turned her back to him and was heading to the main room.

"The meeting with General Beckman is starting in a couple of minutes, be ready in time." she said without even turning to him, skillfully hammering out every crack that threatened to leak in her voice.

Luckily she couldn't see his face.

_Unluckily_ he couldn't see her face.

* * *

When Sarah walked in, followed three minutes later by Chuck, Casey couldn't help noticing that while the first was wearing a perfectly professional attitude, the latter looked heavily stunned, almost as if he'd taken a bunch of slaps on his cheeks, though he didn't have any visible mark.

As they took position at the opposite sides of the room, Casey felt the air thickening with tension and… somewhat else, that he couldn't identify.

Actually he wasn't quite good at deciphering that lady-feelings stuff, so he resumed what he was doing before, looking down again on his documents.

All of a sudden Sarah broke the silence, pushing back her chair, standing up and heading towards the mainframe room .

Chuck made as if to follow her, but the door she slammed behind her back took every initiative from him. Deprived of any energy, Chuck plopped down again on his chair.

After a few minutes of silence, Chuck dared to ask, like an automaton, "Casey, can I ask you a personal question on a delicate matter?" his voice was expressionless and his eyes too, as he was staring off into the distance.

Casey huffed, _feelings only bring problems with 'em,_ thought the soldier in him. "If you can't help it at all…" he mumbled, willfully keeping his eyes on the sheets of paper unfolded in front of him.

Violently shaken by his offish reply, Chuck glared at him, "You really care only about your car, don't you?" he accused. "That old, rough-edged, prehistoric, museum piece…"

"Hey! Tone down, kid!" the Colonel barked, giving him a burning glance.

"You know, I thought that that kind of scrap became extinct when I blew up the last one." Chuck added sarcastically. He was feeling like he himself was about to explode.

Casey jumped up, knocking over the chair behind him, and took a deep breath, trying to keep himself cool, "Now shut up, moron, I don't know what's up with you, but I'm sure you don't know what you're talking about." He could see that the nerd was clearly upset.

"Oh, I do, you bet I do!" Chuck burst out, "If only I knew its GPS code…"

"Thin ice, Bartowski, very thin ice!" the other menaced, clenching hard his fists. A couple of veins grew big on his neck, visibly pulsing.

"Try me out, Sugar Bear!" Chuck taunted.

That was his second great mistake after insulting Casey's car, the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. Chuck abruptly found himself knocked against the table, with his face pressed down on the cold metallic surface and an arm painfully bent behind his back. Casey's growl was so close that his breath was stroking Chuck's left ear.

As if it wasn't enough, the Intersect kept insistently giving him flashes on how to free himself.

He really wasn't in the mood to take its advice.

"Listen to me carefully now, you idiot! I don't know what's going on between you and Agent Walker, but leave me out of this crap! I've had enough!" Casey growled. "Oh, and it's about time for you to figure out how to deal with your temper tantrums." and banged him again on the hard steel.

Chuck blinked a couple of times.

He was slowly and with difficulty managing to calm down, and did his best to perform a nod.

"Sorr-hy," he tried to apologize, temporarily overcoming the pressure of Casey's forearm on the back of his neck. He shut his eyes tight, repeating again and again that sole word in a whispered prayer, while tears were conquering once more the corners of his eyes.

Casey loosened the grasp, allowing Chuck's lungs to expand enough to let him talk. "She's asking for reassignment." he groaned. His heavy breath was drawing misted-up shapes on the smooth surface of the table.

"I know." the other said simply.

"You knew?!" Chuck burst out, incredulous, "Why the hell didn't you…?!"

"As I said, I do not want to get involved now…" he repeated, remarking his statement slamming once more Chuck on the table, "And I didn't before!"

Suddenly the central screen on the wall turned on and General Beckman's voice came out from the speakers, "Well, first of all, I need you to bring…" she begun, but she stopped as she looked up from the documents on her desk and she realized the scene that was taking place before her eyes.

"Cah-sey!" gasped Chuck, desperately pointing at the General's figure.

"… me up to date…" Beckman voice faded down as she continued speaking. Her expression had lost part of its impassiveness, while she'd slowly raised a hand to fix the glasses on her nose.

That very minute Sarah hurried into the room but stopped as she glanced at the monitors. "What's going on here?!" she asked, astonished, staring alternately at her two partners and the General. "Casey, chuck it!" she shouted at last.

"Colonel?" Beckman exhorted him.

As Casey let his victim go, Sarah couldn't help asking him "Are you all right, Chuck?" But fortunately she reacted fast enough to restrain herself from getting closer and helping him up. Instead she stepped back.

"Great. Absolutely great." General Beckman said _almost_ sarcastically, "While one of the handlers is raring to take off our asset's pants, the other one is raring to kill him."

Chuck ironically snorted at the sight of his two companions blushing.

"And, as if it wasn't enough, the asset is bravely committing himself to achieving both their purposes." continued the General, sighing, "That's really a well balanced unit. It's a shame we don't have a trained monkey to send to team up with you…" she gave a little shook.

"Colonel Casey, I bet you have a really valid explanation for your actions, but I'm not sure I want to hear it, so I'll pretend nothing happened."

"Yes, ma'am," he agreed, clearing his throat.

"However, we have lost enough time; you'll give me the last updates regarding the new cover company tomorrow. Now I have a more important task to assign your team." she revealed, "Tonight I need you to carry out an exchange. You'll have to reach the following GPS coordinates before midnight."

The numbers 34.344237-N and 115.062232-W appeared on another screen.

Chuck was too distressed about Sarah to even notice them.

He was afraid of the fatal moment to come, that one in which she would have asked for her reassignment.

"Right now, as we're speaking, a courier should be delivering a briefcase inside the Orange Orange. You'll bring it to the established location and complete the trade."

"What are we supposed to bring back?" agent Walker asked.

"Him." the General said, as her figure was replaced by the picture of a distinct man, in his forties. His hair were pitch black, as his eyes, and a spider web of wrinkles widened from his flat nose, hiding sideways under the thick but well-groomed black beard.

Chuck didn't flash on the picture. As a matter of fact he was busy stealing every glance he could at Sarah, desperately trying to read her soul through the barricades she had hidden herself behind.

A sparkle of hope had lighted up in his eyes when she had not complained at the new mission. Not yet. Perhaps that meant she was going to stay at least one day further.

He let out a hopeful sigh. One more day to try to negotiate.

"Or at least you should be able to bring back some valuable news on him." continued the General, "This man is James A. Butters. He was the chief engineer of the study for a new cruise missile project." a series of images and schematics of mechanical parts slid on the screen, "Five days ago he disappeared and no ransom request has been made. Our analysts have no clue about his possible kidnapper's identity, so we'll act as if he is a deserter, probably helped and/or pushed by other unknown forces, until proved otherwise."

General Beckman's face appeared again on the central monitor, "Any questions?" she asked, shifting her eyes between the three members of Team Bartowski. "Agent Walker? Colonel? Agent Carmichael?"

Chuck blinked a couple of times, his attention finally called to the monitor.

A couple of "no, ma'am" and "everything's clear," gave the General the answer she expected. She nodded as a goodbye and shut off the transmission.

As the screen went black, Sarah burst out "What the hell were you doing, Casey?!"

"Guys?" Chuck tried to get their attention. He had an astonished look stuck on his face.

But Casey continued arguing with Sarah, "Hey, calm down, I was just paying the consequences of your _brilliant_ ideas!"

Chuck cleared his throat, repeating "Guys?!"

They ignored him, and Sarah replied to the other "If you have a better solution, you're welcome to suggest it!"

"Sarah, Casey, listen…" Chuck horned in impatiently, with a slightly trembling voice.

"Shut up!" both yelled at him, causing him to pull back against his chair.

"Pineapple." he muttered, with a dead serious expression in his eyes.

The silence flooded the room with the intensity of a thousand waterfalls suddenly drying up.

"What?!" asked Sarah, frowning and brushing a stray wisp behind her ear. The anger in her eyes was leaving its place to confusion.

Casey grunted. "We're settling this discussion outside." he growled, hastily standing up and giving Agent Walker a gaze that nipped any question in the bud.

Halfway on the stairs for the Orange Orange, he added in a whisper "Bartowski, for your own sake, this would better not be a joke."


	5. Something's Wrong

_Okay, okay, the last update was just an awkward__ attempt to draw your attention (this one follows its steps somewhat too :) and it was a bit angst-driven but, you know, every story worthy of the name has highs and lows._

_I'm just trying a range of different situations, so thanks for your patience._

_This chapter was ready a week ago, but I had to leave for my holidays and, obviously, I couldn't log in because the site had some technical problem. I guess I'm an unlucky beggar..._

_However, have fun!_

_I don't own Chuck and blah-blah-blah… _

_Oh, have I already told you __what an outstanding work is doing __**kroblues**__ editing my stories?_ _O-U-T-S-T-A-N-D-I-N-G!_

_He has to bear my grammatical errors (I can be really __thick-headed) as much as teach me the 'real' English (believe me, it's completely different from the 'barely translated' one). I have no more words left to thank him enough…_

_

* * *

_

**Outside the Orange Orange**

_Pineapple._

Chuck was impatiently pacing up and down on the pavement, occasionally glancing at his two handlers, as they were assimilating what he'd just told them.

Back in the meeting room he had flashed.

Neither on the kidnapped man nor on the project of the new missiles, but on the _transmission_ itself.

That morning they had not been talking with the real General Beckman, but simply with a piece of software.

An advanced one, handled by an unknown puppeteer.

And a skillful one, at that.

Beckman's role had been played by a mere collage of frames recorded in the previous months. Or maybe years, who knew.

"We have an issue, here. A big one." Casey mumbled, frowning and turning back to look through the windows at the mysterious briefcase that lay on the Orange Orange counter.

"Yeah." Sarah agreed in a low voice, between her teeth, "This means that someone has been recording every single meeting and briefing we had with the headquarters." she shook her head, still incredulous.

"And also that that very 'somebody' was just here a couple of minutes ago." added Casey.

"This whole thing makes no sense…" said Chuck shaking his head too, "It can't be the Ring behind all this… If they knew everything about us, why didn't they attack us before? They want the Intersect too, after all."

"You're right, if it was the Ring, that briefcase should have exploded when we came out." admitted the Colonel, "we still should still take this option into account, but it's more likely we're facing a single man, or at most a small squad of freelancers."

Chuck nodded, "According to the information that the Intersect gave me, they probably gained access to an Army communication satellite. Their team must feature a really tough hacker or somebody with top-notch computer skills." he explained, "And now they're trying to get in touch with us…"

"Or to make us fall in their trap." added Casey.

"I don't think so, otherwise why would they have waited till now?" Chuck asked.

"Perhaps because their plan required it?" he hypothesized provocatively, "Or do you think that a couple of hours of tape are enough to do that little play-acting?!"

"Casey, cool down." Sarah chimed in, dividing the two like a boxing referee, "The little we know suggests mainly two cases. Either they want the Intersect on a silver platter, alive and without witnesses, and then this will turn out being a trap, or they are about to ask for our help." she sighed, "There's no doubt that the most likely scenario is the first."

"Wait, what do you mean?" asked Chuck, narrowing his eyes, visibly annoyed, "You aren't trying to bench me, aren't you?!"

Another fear was running up into his heart. The more and more rational fear that now she could be the one to ask for his burial, deep underground.

Was she still by his side?

Or instead was she going to turn her back on him?

He winced, as he realized that he didn't know what to think anymore.

"No, Chuck." she patiently answered, "Listen, tonight it would be too dangerous for you to come with us…"

"Yeah, great!" he sneered at her, thrusting back his fears once more, "In that case I'm staying here, in the Castle. Where they could easily find me... No, where they're _surely_ going to find me, _alone_, just while my handlers are having a nice trip in the middle of nowhere!" he ended, almost shouting.

Sarah stood still, leaning against the shop entrance with her arms crossed on her chest. She didn't say a word; she just kept staring harshly at him.

His exasperate hostility was painful, but deep down she was glad that he had at least found some strength to react.

That should have been a positive signal. But, then, why did she still feel that weight, that dull pain on her chest?

"I must admit that the moron is right, this time." Casey agreed, narrowing his eyes.

"Many thanks, Casey, I really needed your support in this!" Chuck said, without putting much effort in hiding the vein of sarcasm in his voice, "Who knows, maybe this time I could even stay in the car!" he provocatively added, glancing at Sarah.

As a matter of fact, his mind was definitely not focused on their new fake-mission at all. His thoughts were spinning in whirls, as he was desperately trying to come up with a plan, or a speech, or whatever that could make her go back on her decision.

"Slow down, Bartowski," Casey's voice crept into his thoughts, "Nobody is doing anything whatsoever. At least until we get in touch with the _real_ General Beckman." he ordered.

Heading down the street he added, over his shoulder, "I have to make some old-style phone calls from a public telephone."

As soon as Casey went out of sight, Chuck turned towards Sarah.

Gathering another bit of courage, he asked "Don't you think that I deserve an explanation?" he was staring at her with his deep, tentative brown eyes, "At least a believable one." he said, snorting, "Perhaps you could start answering at these ones: do I deserve this punishment? How did I _earn_ it?"

His ears were deaf to everything else that wasn't her voice.

But, instead of giving him a real answer, she coldly replied "I thought you had to take Morgan to the airport. You'll be late if you don't leave now."

That said, she spun on her heels and disappeared into the Orange Orange, leaving behind her a messed up, half-burned, half-frozen heart under the Californian sun.

* * *

**On the W****ay to the Airport**

"Ah-hem, Chuck," begun Morgan, grasping with all his strength to the straps of the black Suburban his friend had borrowed from Casey, "I-I know that this car probably has a reinforced body, at least six airbags, an explosion-proof tank, etcetera… But could you please avoid skimming the vehicles in the other lane? I… Ooh, God!" he yelled, shutting his eyes as their trajectory seemed to lead straight under the wheels of a huge 18-wheeler, "You see, I would really appreciate it!" he ended, just after he'd slowly half-opened one eye and felt his body, as to ascertain that he was still alive.

Chuck remained silent, staring at the road without truly seeing it, and kept driving like an automatic pilot. A cheap one.

"Pal, you know, I've never been carsick, but now you're definitely making me enjoy this new experience…" Morgan said, bottling up a retch, "Though, honestly, I'd have preferred doing without it. Really."

Realizing that the other didn't mean to slow down, he added "Listen, I know that this 'growing-up' thing brings with it a lot of problems, and all. And I know that punctuality is among these too, but…" he held his breath, mentally thanking Someone up there for dodging death once again, this time in the form of a bus.

Regaining his strength, he reminded himself to breathe again and continued "…but to have a chance of being _on time_, we need to get there _alive_. So Chuck, please, look briefly, _really briefly_, at me and then focus your attention on the road _directly_ in front of us, okay? Would you do this for me?"

All of a sudden Chuck blinked his eyes several times, finally realizing where he was and what he was doing.

But he had time enough to just open his eyes wider.

Then, both the occupants of the vehicle screamed and howled, "WHOAAA!" reaching and subsequently overcoming their highest vocal peak, as their car squeezed in between two tailbacks and flew through a crossroads, bravely ignoring the red light.

As the wheels bounced again on the rough asphalt surface, Chuck's heavy pressure on the brakes showed its effects, and their seatbelts violently tugged them, keeping their noses safely away from the dashboard.

The car stopped with a screech a dozen meters after the crossroads.

Chuck and Morgan had slipped down on the seats and now only their heads were raised over the dashboard.

For a few seconds the only thing they could hear was their own deep labored breathing, but suddenly several loud thuds startled them.

Both couldn't do anything but staring at the small old woman with thick round glasses and small sharpened eyes. She was standing in front of them, waving her walking-stick towards them and hammering at the car hood with a shopping bag full of vegetables.

Pre-packed in convenient, sturdy tin cans.

Finally, when the old lady had finished her shaping work, the hood looked more or less like a lunar landscape. She gave a satisfied nod and resumed her walk across the road, calling for her little poodle, that in the meantime had been profusely watering down three wheels of the car.

Leaning out of the window, Morgan stated "Wow, that dog must have had a hidden tank somewhere… I mean, look at this!" he shook his head in disbelief.

But Chuck was still too absent-minded to worry about it. He resumed driving to the airport, this time with a little bit more consciousness, letting a deep silence grow again between them.

However after a couple of miles he was the one who broke the silence first, and when he spoke, he did it with a doubtful voice, "I have something to ask you."

"Hey, sure buddy, am I your best friend or not? C'mon, spit it out, you can share with me every little perverted secret that hides in that big head of yours." but, after thinking about it for a second, he added "Oh, well, just because it's you… If you were Jeff I would have set some _specific_ boundaries…"

Chuck took a deep breath, _you'll be surprised about all the secrets I can't tell you, pal,_ he thought. However, he went straight to the point "When a girl tells you that she needs some time on her own…"

Morgan shook his head with resignation, before giving him a couple of slaps on his shoulder, "Ouch! That's a bad, really bad situation. Fortunately I'm sure that you and Sarah will never experience it." said Morgan, "You know, once I saw a newscast report where they explained that most of the times it means that it's over…" he added thoughtfully.

"What?" whispered Chuck, gazing at him and causing the car to dangerously swerve to the left, "O-over?" he repeated.

"Chuck! The road!" yelled Morgan, clinging to the steering-wheel while trying to keep the car onto the right lane.

A chorus of horn blasts cursed their short trip into the wrong direction.

"Okay, Chuck," he gulped loudly, "if I ever want to become a world-famous Hibachi chef, I need to keep intact all my motor faculties. So, pal, I heartily suggest you to pull up on the right and stop the car." he proposed, hardly managing to keep his voice steady, "We're early enough to have a little talk."

As Chuck silently did as he asked, he sighed and continued "Well, maybe I've been a little rough before…"

Chuck nodded absent-mindedly, "Over…" he repeated mechanically.

"Oh, man, stop it!" he gave his head a little shake, "Forget it. Listen, if she really told you that, she probably had her reasons, but don't you even _think_ that she does not care about you. I saw how she looks at you. Actually, everyone has. The way you both look at each other when you make eye contact…"

He waited it out until the other nodded slightly, and then he continued "Now tell me what she exactly said you."

Chuck gave a heavy sigh, beginning "She said that…" he conked out for an instant, enough to realize that, despite his need to speak with someone, he couldn't tell all the truth to Morgan. The people he could freely talk to were so few, he could count them on the fingers of a hand. A general, a colonel, a couple of spies and his father. Not exactly the best audience.

He sighed again, "She said that she needs some time to take care of herself, that I could, ah, _suffer_ from being with her, and that she's going to move away to avoid that."

He'd said those last words reluctantly, as if the sole fact of saying it out loud was enough to make it come true.

But when he finally searched for his best friend's eyes, all he saw was the small bearded-man almost swimming in his open suitcase and muttering "And yet I was sure I had a pen, somewhere!"

"Morgan! Did you hear a single word of what I said?!" Chuck complained, frowning.

"Yeah, yeah, don't worry, mate." he reassured him, throwing together the clothes he had scattered all around the inside of the car and putting them back into the suitcase. "Never mind," he said, giving up his search for a click-clacking pen. "Well, let's examine everything from the beginning."

He cleared his throat, making sure he had Chuck's attention, and then he began "First of all you need to bear in mind that none of the explanations she gave you is true, _but_ each of them hides a little piece of truth behind itself."

He finally managed to close the suitcase, and then continued "Issue number one, she is scared. By what? By you? Nah, I don't think so, you have many qualities, but fearsomeness is not among 'em. Then by what? Herself?" he nodded to himself, "Very likely. Sure is that she's worried _about_ you."

"Wait, why on earth would she be scared of herself?"

"Maybe she's scared of not being up to you, who knows. However this brings us to the issue number two, the moving-away stuff. It clearly means that she's fleeing. And you have to ask yourself one main question. What or who is she running away from? And this takes us back to the first issue. And the answer is the same."

Chuck shook his head, trying to clarify his thoughts, "Okay, okay, you _might_ even be right, but _why_ did she say that she needs some time to take care of herself?"

"Congratulations, you hit the issue number three on the nail." Morgan smiled, "However I'm sorry. My responses are limited. You must ask the right questions." he said, quoting some lines from the film _I, Robot_.

But seeing that Chuck was still a bit confused he decided to help him, "C'mon, mate, she said what she needs…"

"What?" Chuck frowned.

Morgan rolled his eyes, making too much of it, and just like a teacher that prompts the right answer to the examined schoolboy, he asked "Can you take care of her? Do you want to?"

Chuck nodded, "I do," he said in a whisper, while a new glimmer lighted his eyes up.

"That's it!" burst out Morgan triumphantly, "That's what she needs and that's what you can, no, you _will_ give her!" he took a deep breath, hastily calming down, "However, in my opinion you don't have to worry about this whole thing."

"You seriously think so?" he asked, clenching his fists on the steering wheel.

"Yeah. Believe me; I've never heard a more confused heap of pre-packed excuses. Really, mate. Just have a little patience and let the facts speak for themselves."

Chuck grinned for the very first time in that day.

He got going again, but this time his thoughts were somewhat lighter than before.

"When did you turn into a love-matter expert?" he asked Morgan, intrigued by his friends ability to surprise him when he least expected it.

"Oh, you know," he minimized, brushing his hand at the air, "I'm subscribed to Discovery Channel. They air lots of documentaries."

"Yeah," he said laughing, "I bet that mother bear often tells father bear that she needs to take a breathing space…" he mocked his friend, "Not to mention the large number of 911-calls because of quarrels between lions and tigers, for the same matter!"

Morgan chuckled, "Girls are somewhat different from us, pal, trust me. Sometimes Anna knows and sees things I didn't even think existed. The same happens for problems." he paused, weighing up his words, "And do you know what I think? I think that they need our help to solve 'em, most of the times."

He shrugged, "Though I still haven't been able to prove it…"

Chuck's smile grew wider, reaching his eyes too, "I'll miss you, buddy."

"Ah, I know, I know. I always affect people this way." but then, after an instant, he cleared his throat and added "However don't worry, if you keep this cruising speed, I'll miss my flight…"

* * *

**At the Nearest Public Phone**

"Colonel Casey, I was expecting your call." Beckman greeted him. Finally, after a dozen of calls that had led to nothing, he'd been able to get to her.

"Ma'am?" asked Casey, quite surprised by her beginning.

He could hear her quick steps on the marble floors of the Pentagon, as she continued, apologizing, " I had to skip this morning's meeting, since our mainframes have been attacked by an unknown hacker." she sighed, "Probably the whole Pentagon has been turned upside-down by a couple of pimply teenagers with a craze for computers."

Casey winced. Could possibly the two instances be connected? Definitely. Someone was trying to isolate them, at least until midnight. "General…" he tried saying.

"However since I have no mission to assign you, and since I have the absolute certainty that you're doing a good job with the transfer to the new facility, I'll grant you a day off…"

"General," he interrupted her imperatively, "We have reason to believe that this morning we were contacted by the same persons behind the attack to the headquarters."

The sound of her steps suddenly died, and just the ground noise of the Pentagon corridors kept coming out from the receiver. "How?" she asked with an alarmed tone.

"According to the information the Intersect gave us, they got into an Army satellite. Though they couldn't possibly have had access to the closed-circuit cameras, they still have gathered a considerable amount of info on our team."

"Enough. Communications are to be regarded as not safe until further notice. We'll discuss it later and you'll give me a detailed report."

That said she abruptly cut off the phone call.

Casey stood still, with the receiver hanging from his hand, ignoring the hammering _beep_ of the dialing tone.

Their unknown interlocutors had left their 'silent observation' stuff behind them, and had come into action in quite an impressive way.

He whistled with a sort of respectful admiration.

They had nullified no less than the Pentagon.

He hung up the receiver, wincing again at the prospect of a new _enemy_ with such capabilities and determination.

* * *

**The Castle**

When the bomb disposal experts had opened the suspicious briefcase, they'd found in it nothing more than two million dollars in bearer bonds.

A bomb would have been more… _desirable_, thought Casey.

Those sheets of paper only aroused further confusion around their unknown… What? Enemies, allies, _benefactors_… How the hell was he supposed to name them?

He shook his head, willingly postponing the problem.

Luckily, deciding who had to be considered an enemy was General Beckman's job.

A couple of hours later, the Colonel was directing the work of the support squad that the Agency had sent to help them moving into the new Castle.

Eventually the old operation centre was safe once again, since an NSA computer expert had installed a special device that could warn them in advance if someone tried again to have access to their satellite connection with Washington.

But Casey still had the creepy feeling of someone staring at him from a place where he couldn't see him.

Shaking himself from his thoughts, he focused again on the frenetic activity that was taking place in front of him.

As Bartowski passed by, carefully keeping at a safe distance, Casey gave him an ice-cold glance. Several hours earlier the nerd had come back from the airport, and Casey had finally got his Suburban back.

With a demolished hood and a bent parking meter stuck on the anterior axle shaft. This one of unknown provenance, at least according to Chuck's testimony.

Oh, and there also were a pair of men's pants under the dashboard.

He snorted. That assignment was becoming really weird and expensive.

"The new Castle will be operational soon, Colonel Casey," General Beckman assured, taking him by surprise.

They definitely weren't expecting that.

Her voice wasn't coming from any of the remaining screens, but was hailing from the top of the stairway leading to the Orange Orange. "You'll agree with me that the sooner the operation moves there, the better."

She had a long light coat hanging on her forearm and was wearing an austere ash-gray suit, without any flash or rank pinned on her chest. Her hair was tied at the nape of her neck as usual and no lock or a single strand broke away from her strict bun as she walked down the stairs.

Maybe thanks to some Army hairspray that came from an awry top-secret biochemical experiment, thought Chuck.

Casey snapped to attention after his initial astonishment. "Ma'am!" he greeted the senior officer.

"At ease, Colonel," she said at once.

Chuck couldn't help noticing that, despite her short height, Diane Beckman had an incredibly authoritarian bearing that let everyone clearly perceive her military past. And present.

Unofficial visit or not.

Sarah walked in just as Beckman set her plain formal shoes on the ground. A look of surprise crossed the agent's face but she deftly hid it, immediately taking her most professional attitude, and made just a slight nod towards her superior. "General."

"Agent Walker. As I was just about to say your partners, I've just passed by the head-office of your new cover company, where the supervisor has guaranteed me that within thirty-six hours the workers will be putting the finishing touches through." she said, "However, I am here to discuss a more serious matter." As to underline her intentions she dropped her coat on the back of a chair and her briefcase on the table.

"While the Colonel brings me up to date with the latest developments, you, agent Carmichael, will go to the server room and install this network security-breach detection software." she ordered, giving him a USB flash drive, "Meanwhile, you, agent Walker, will go to this address and bring Stephen Bartowski to the new Castle." she said handing her a sheet of paper, "He could be in danger as well."

"With due respect, ma'am, we're part of this team too…" Sarah tried to object to her decision. She was clearly reluctant to leave.

Her hesitation, as much as her choice of words, caused Chuck to involuntarily crack a smile. '_We_ _are too'_, not just '_I still am'_, as he'd have expected. _We._ He awkwardly tried to hide that untimely happiness, but there was no way he could wipe out the glimmer in his eyes.

"This is not a request, agent Walker. You have your task." the General cut it short.

* * *

As they both walked out, General Beckman stared inquiringly at Casey.

"Is the mission in immediate danger?" she asked, going straight to the point.

"Apparently not, ma'am," he said, "but it could be soon. As far as we know, our… well, our secret admirers have been recording every single communication, meeting or debriefing we've had in the past months."

"That's impossible, Colonel." she burst out, clearly upset.

"Not at all. We've been contacted by a virtual _clone_ of yourself, General."

A thoughtful silence filled the following instants, as the General was thinking about the news.

"They've assigned us on a new mission. Tonight." Casey continued.

She narrowed her eyes from the surprise. "What kind of mission?"

"We're supposed to reach a certain location and deliver a briefcase." he revealed.

Beckman's reaction was not long in coming, and it sounded extremely resolved, "No way, it's too dangerous."

"Normally I would agree…" the Colonel begun.

"Fine, then I'll send immediately a unit to evacuate the asset and secure him." she declared, opening her briefcase to take her encrypted mobile phone.

"…but…" he continued reluctantly.

"But?" the General asked back, slightly annoyed.

Casey took a deep breath.

He knew he was gonna regret what he was about to do, sooner or later.

But, on the other hand, how would have felt to betray him now?

No, John Casey had never betrayed anyone in his life, _at least anyone who didn't deserve it_. And Charles Irving Bartowski had served his country with honor.

Except when he'd blown up his car.

The Colonel clenched his teeth.

However, he had to admit that Bartowski had been a _damn_ good partner. Almost as much as Agent Walker was.

He snorted for thinking of her. The waiting for Beckman's next directives was probably driving her mad. She surely had a soft spot for a certain nerd…

"Ma'am, am I allowed to speak freely?" he asked, chasing away that lady-feelings crap from his mind.

She agreed, offhandedly, "Permission granted."

He somewhat _owed_ it to both of them.

"Agent Carmichael…" he winced at that appellation. _Damn_, he would have never get used to it. "…he is safe, for now. The recent events don't suggest the Ring being behind this."

He saw the General frowning, cautiously valuating his words.

"Actually, considering all the classified information they had access to, they could have easily attacked us before, directly here in the Castle, if they really wanted to. Instead they have sent us time and coordinates for a meeting."

The General nodded, silently allowing him to go ahead.

"I'm aware of the risks of a stall situation like this, but I suggest keeping the evacuation as our last option. Besides they don't know that we're privy to their stratagem. Actually, agent Carmichael has done a good job informing us of it without letting them know." he admitted, "We could exploit this position of little advantage we gained."

"Get to the point, Colonel Casey."

"I suggest that we take part in the meeting."

"Colonel, both you, agent Walker and agent Carmichael are compromised. This could turn out to be a very dangerous situation." she shook her head.

Casey snorted, crossing his arms on his chest. His following words came out of his mouth before he could manage to zip his lips up, "It's not a novelty for some spies to take a few risks."

"Spare me your sarcasm, Colonel, it doesn't suit you." she reproached him.

* * *

**Somewhere round about 34.344237-N and 115.062232-W**

They had been given the green light to proceed.

Casey raised his pair of infrared binoculars, and kept following the rented car in the distance, as it was bouncing up and down on the dirt track. A dusty cloud was chasing it, and the rear lights were giving it a soft red glow.

Chuck and Sarah were getting closer to the agreed position, and he needed to find another suitable observation point.

He was meant to be their guardian angel, that night.

"Yeah, unless they don't kill each other…" muttered the Colonel to himself.

He got back in his pitch black Suburban, put on his night goggles and slowly moved forward, without turning on any light.

His own personal guardian angel that night was simply the darkness.

* * *

The rented car, a fully un-accessorized, stark off-roader, was stubbornly going on and on, despite the awful condition of the ground.

Sarah was skillfully managing the heavy vehicle on the bumpy road, while the headlights set on full beam were losing themselves in a monotonous landscape of dried shrubs.

A heavy silence had settled between her and Chuck. It had been there since they'd left Burbank, broken just by the thuds of pebbles thrown away by the large tyres, as they were furiously clawing the ground.

She glanced at him and she frowned as she saw that lopsided smile on his face again.

He'd been like that since the meeting with Beckman.

Why on earth was he smiling?!

* * *

Casey cursed when the car body heavily bumped into a jutting stone that he'd not seen.

"Damn this off-road trip!" he said in a low voice.

After that mission he would have had to toss his Suburban into a junkyard.

* * *

Chuck got out of the car, bringing with him the briefcase. They had stopped in a clearing in the middle of nowhere.

He reached Sarah in front of the car, and when he passed before the headlights, the shadow of his body grew longer, fading into the distance and melting with the night.

The singing of the crickets was slowly regaining its strength, as the off-roader was no longer hassling their peaceful evening with its noise.

Apart from the somewhat comforting ticking of the engine that was cooling down.

"You really can't stay in the car, can't you?" asked Sarah, resignedly smiling. She was leaning against the front bumper with her arms tightly crossed on her chest.

He got next to her, leaning his elbows on the hood, "You know, it's been a while since you last smiled at me. I mean, I almost forgot how _good_ it feels."

She snorted, looking away.

"I'm serious." he replied to her annoyance, "And, above all, I'm simply being honest."

She was hoping that the contrast between the car-lights and the darkness around them could hide the flush on her cheeks. "Listen, Chuck, we're not here to discuss about us."

"Yeah, you're right. We're here to stare silently into space, waiting for the dawn." he agreed sneering. "Very romantic, don't you think?"

She heaved a meaningful sigh, slowly passing a hand over her hair.

Then, summoning up the best reproaching tone she could, she said "Chuck, please don't."

* * *

Casey crawled amongst the bushes to reach the top of the hill.

A pale crescent moon was standing at his right; dull enough neither to highlight his silhouette nor to reveal his position with a glare.

Any reflection from the lenses of his silenced sniper rifle would have been a serious problem.

* * *

"_Don't_ what? Don't make everything more difficult? Or just don't _talk_?" he pried.

He was attacking her, and when he realized that, his mouth refused to let any other word out. Harming her was the last thing he wanted.

_I'm sorry_, Sarah thought, not even glancing at him and pretending that he didn't say anything. She hoped that her indifference could force him to step back.

Chuck took a deep breath and a light shiver run down his spine as he broke away from the bumper. He looked at his quivering hands.

"I won't talk." he said, "This time I won't talk."

Actions speak louder than words, at least sometimes.

* * *

Casey had just raised the binoculars to his eyes, when he abruptly moved them away.

He blinked several times.

"What the hell…?!" he burst out, unwillingly looking again through the lenses.

* * *

Unexpectedly Chuck had stepped in front of Sarah.

He'd grabbed her shoulders firmly, like he'd never done before with anyone else.

Actually no one else had ever made him feel like that.

She desperately _tried_ to feel the urge to run away, but his wonderful smile, his brown eyes, his brown curls prevented her from doing that.

Her mind kept barking in vain, but suddenly fell silent as it was overcome by the feeling of her heart melting down in happiness, when his warm, anxiety-dried lips leaned a gentle kiss on hers.

The crickets around them seemed to sing out louder and louder.

Out there, under a pale, curious moon, surrounded by the blinding halo of the headlights, they savored each other's taste once again.

The corners of Chuck's -really busy- mouth twitched up slightly, as he realized the passion she was putting in answering him back.

It had been a while since the last time their noses had found themselves so near.

* * *

Back at the Castle, a sleeping screen, the last remaining one, had turned on, and a plain text message had appeared on it.

_'__I've been followed. The exchange is postponed. Call your agents back, quickly.' _

A last line appeared, after a few seconds.

_'S__erious danger.'_

Only an empty, dark room was there to welcome that warning.

* * *

Casey nodded, still looking through his pair of binoculars.

"Now I recognize you, Walker…"

* * *

She'd violently slapped him once, causing Chuck to step back.

"Chuck!" she hissed with bated breath, slowly passing a hand on her lips.

He stared at her with wide-open eyes, slowly rubbing down his cheek. But the grin never left his mouth. "You can't even imagine how many slaps I can take before fainting." he said, chuckling.

He came closer and cupped his hands around her face, softly kissing her again.

That once she didn't make a stand.

She either couldn't or didn't want to.

* * *

The Colonel groaned, "Oww, not again!"

He winced and put down the binoculars. "I could be really sick if they continue with this lady-feelings stuff. If I puke, this time I'm sure it's not because of the tacos…" but his voice abruptly faded down as he saw some smooth lights brighten the air in the distance.

He looked at his watch. Half past midnight. "You're late, buddy." he muttered

Casey quickly reached for the transceiver and said "You two, enough kissing and cuddling, we have company. At six o'clock."

The sound of a couple of slap and related 'ouch!'es came out of his headphone followed by Sarah's professional voice. "Yes, we've seen it too."

* * *

"You know? You have a deadly forehand!" Chuck complained.

Sarah sighed. "Chuck, it's over."

_Damn,_ her voice had cracked just when she least needed it.

But she had to get to the bottom of the decision she'd taken. It was the right thing to do.

"It doesn't seem to me. However you asked me to trust you, not to believe you. And that's what I'm doing."

"No, Chuck!" she burst out, desperately. Her entire body was quivering as she added "I'm going to ask for a reassignment, I've already resolved to do that."

Chuck shook his head. She clearly was anything but 'resolved'. He winced, still keeping a shadow of his previous smile on his lips. "That excuse doesn't work anymore… Maybe you could try something else. I know a few helpful pretexts, and they're perfectly believable too…"

"Chuck, what are you doing?!" she asked, frowning. A perplexed look came down on her face.

"Well, since you obviously lack in imagination, I'm lending you a hand."

"You're offering to help me to _dump_ yourself?!" she couldn't help but smiling, even if so slightly.

"Well, actually that's not true. To tell the truth, I'm offering a more wide-ranged help… You know, that's what a friend is supposed to do." he said, as his eyes could finally lose themselves in her blue ones, once again. That deprivation had become almost painful.

"Ordinary people don't _kiss_ their friends like you just did!" she answered him back.

"Touché." he yielded, "Indeed that's true. But it is also true that a friend doesn't respond to that kind of 'friendly-kiss' just like _you_ did."

His smile grew bigger as he noticed her cheeks blushing, as she kept nibbling her lower lip.

* * *

All of a sudden an old pick-up jumped out on the top of a hill, a mile in front of Walker and Bartowski. There was only one drivable road, and it was heading straight towards them.

Casey sneered, imagining Bartowski's face. The newcomers definitely knew the meaning of the word 'timing'.

But he soon had to damp down on his fun, as four, no… Five anonymous black cars appeared, obviously hot on the trail of the pick-up.

"Wait!" he shouted in the microphone, "There are five uninvited guests! The mission is aborted, you two go away now!"

Through the binoculars he saw his partners hurrying to the car doors. "Bartowski, tell me you have not forgotten the briefcase…" he asked between his teeth.

Chuck's panting answer came quickly, "Of course not! Who do you think I am? Some second-class good-at-nothing substitute of a spy?!"

"No, I just thought that you had a lot of things on your mou… uh, mind, lately." Casey mocked him.

Chuck's reply came with a tense laughter, "Very funny, Colonel!"

He kept staring at the scene that was taking place before his eyes, but this time he was looking through the sniper scope.

The red cross symbols on its lenses somehow calmed him down. They gave him a bit more confidence.

Sarah nimbly manoeuvred the cumbersome off-roader, turning it around, and then she promptly hit the gas. Smaller and bigger stones flew in every direction as the wheels furiously skimmed on the ground.

The heavy vehicle accelerated to its top speed, roaring and trying to shoot out its occupants like a pissed bull in a rodeo.

As he saw that the pursuers were closing to his partners, Casey took the decision to thin out their ranks.

He carefully aimed in the middle of the heap and shot at random, at wheel height.

As its tires burst, one of the black cars swerved to the right and pivoting on its left wheels. It started repeatedly overturning in a cloud of dust. The rolling wreck ended its run, smashing into another one of the following cars, subsequently dragging it into a intense deadly dance.

He gave himself an approval nod. "Good shot. Two intruders less."

Chuck and Sarah were about to go out of his sight, so he had to move quickly. He jumped up and ran down the sheltered side of the hill, heading to his Suburban.

* * *

Chuck was hardly holding onto his seat, as the off-roader was miraculously keeping its wheels downwards and the roof towards the stars.

He looked back and shouted, trying to overcome the growl of the full-out boosted engine, "Our mysterious friend with the pick-up has picked another turn at the previous crossroads, but we still have one car trailing behind us!"

"We have to get rid of it!" Sarah shouted back. Then she talked into the microphone, "Casey, they're coming closer, where the hell are you?"

A couple of bullets hit the hatchback door, cracking both the rear window and the windshield.

"Geez! This is getting dangerous!" yelled Chuck, bending himself down.

She reached the headphone and pressed it against her ear, trying to hear something. "Casey?!" she barked.

Chuck was about to say something, but when he turned to Sarah, he could just wordlessly face a pair of blinding spots of light heading straight towards them.

One thought crossed his mind in that very instant, as his eyes focused on Sarah's silhouette.

_She__ really has some beautiful features._

The approaching lights vanished as the two vehicles collided.

One of the enemy cars had taken a parallel road and had jumped out from the bushes at full speed right when they were passing by.

The side hit was devastating.

All the windows exploded in thousands of sparkling splinters as the car body got completely warped, losing its original shape and function.

The off-roader was lifted over the ground by the violent blow, and it was hurled off the road.

As it spun round and revolved in mid-air, every reference lost its meaning. The courtesy light didn't point upwards anymore. Neither the windshield pointed on their heading, nor the wing mirrors looked backwards.

But the end was still far to come, simply because the force of gravity has always been a tough foe to defeat.

The impact with the ground was the result of three forces in action. The inertia of the off-roader, the side-blow of the other car, and the above-mentioned gravity.

_That_ was the worst stroke.

The whole structure of the car seemed to be struck by the iron ball of a demolition crane.

Subsequently, what was left of the off-roader just kept overturning and rolling on the rough, dusty ground for almost forty yards.

However, for the two closest spectators of that terrifying scene everything had already gone black.

* * *

Chuck blinked several times, hardly managing to sharpen his sight on something for longer than a second.

An incessant whistle was piercing his ears and everything seemed to happen much more slowly.

"Sarah?"

As he called her name, his own strangled voice felt like it was coming from someone else. And when he tried to turn towards her, he realized that he was hanging from the seatbelt, suspended over a rug of glistening crystals.

The metallic taste of blood filled his mouth as the twirling dust caused him to cough.

"Sarah?!" he cried out.

A throaty groan of pain came out of his mouth, as he unfastened the seatbelt and fell down to the ground, cutting his hands and his forehead with the glass splinters.

Once again he called out loud, with a dismayed voice, "Sarah?"

But when he finally managed to glance at the driver's seat, Sarah wasn't where was supposed to be.

There was no trace of her blond hair. Nor of her blue eyes.

_Did… Did she fasten her seatbelts?_ was all Chuck could think, as a dread that he'd never felt before spread through his eyes.

All of a sudden, a couple of strong hands pulled him out of the metal wreck, before he could either do or think anything else.

As soon as he was dragged away from the upside-down off-roader, he noticed the smoke surrounding himself, and realized that the car had just caught fire. Warm flames were spreading from its body, stretching out their burning arms to the indifferent moon.

But then he realized another thing.

The hands that were holding him didn't belong to Casey or Sarah. They didn't even belong to Bryce, though, in the next instant of lucidity, he had to admit that that was impossible.

They belonged to a stranger.

A bad man. One that was supposed to be dead, as the Intersect told him.

_Am I dead too?_ thought Chuck briefly.

Then, guided by the computer in his head, he quickly grabbed a nearby a bent and sharpened piece of iron and, with a fast rotational motion, he thrust it into his rescuer foot.

The latter let out a guttural scream. Releasing his hold on Chuck's body, he fell on the ground and grasped his bleeding foot.

Once Chuck found himself free, he made as if to stand up, but a sudden and breathtaking pang from his broken ribs caused him to scream out loud and fall heavily on his knees, next to his groaning savior.

Chuck could just spit out a bit of soil that got into his mouth and stare helplessly at the shoes of other two men that came closer and grabbed him again from his armpits.

He flashed on something, but didn't make in time to see the instructions that the Intersect was giving him.

Because everything turned black once more.

_Sarah._

That soundlessly cried out name echoed one last time in his mind.

_Sarah!_


	6. Knuckles Cracking At Dawn

_Here we go again!__ This one was a bit long… (phew! what an effort to get to the bottom of it!) but maybe too much, so we (me and my favorite betareader :) decided to publish it into two or three parts (we'll decide it later). The update frequency will depend on kro's polishing speed, so complain to him! (but before doing that, you'll have to walk over my dead body! :)_

_In the meantime if you enjoyed this story please __**review**__ it too, even if anonymous!  
What? … Yeah, you're right, I'm writing this story just to get some pats on my back. The self-patting doesn't work that well. He-he!  
Many thanks!_

_As usual, you should thank __**kroblues**__ if you don't find tons of grammatical errors within my story! But that's not exhaustive by far… (i.e. I always mess up with Italian and English idioms…) However I've already expressed my opinion on him and his priceless work._

_Do I own Chuck and all its rights? Let __me check in my wallet……… No, pity!_

* * *

**A Dark Room**

Chuck blinked, trying to push away the blurry curtain that was waving in front of his brown eyes, and trying to shake off the numbness that was weighing down his limbs.

In his mouth, a furred tongue was roughly scraping his palate, giving him the illusion of being suffocated.

He coughed a couple of times, swallowing a dried lump of saliva.

Realizing that he was sitting on a chair he tried to stand up, but a painful scream came out of his mouth as a twinge stabbed his chest.

As he focused on the pain, he flashed. The Intersect explained to him that this was a compound fracture of two ribs, in two points lined up along the right anterior axillary line.

Probable cause: blunt trauma. Therapy: rest. Prognosis: one month to partial recovery.

_Thanks,__ stupid computer,_ he thought sarcastically, grinding his teeth, _that's some really useful info!_

Struggling to move his unnaturally heavy head, he looked around the room he was in. It was completely empty and its darkness was broken only by the soft pale light that was seeping through a couple of small, square-shaped windows placed aloft, right under the ceiling.

He was trapped in a basement.

The solid iron bars that he could see through the thin, dusty glass were enough to make him reject that means of escape.

And almost at the same moment he realized that he had been unconsciously looking for a way out, he finally became aware of the large amount of adhesive tape that tightly tied him to the heavy metallic chair he was sitting on.

But afterward, a worse awareness hit him, like a building of forty floors collapsing on itself. It was the emptiness left by Sarah's absence by his side.

Chuck remembered the accident and the horror that he felt, right after the somersault, finding out that she hadn't been where was supposed to be.

If his kidnappers had not taken her too, then where was she?

Was she…

A dread lump grew into his throat.

…_still alive?_

* * *

**Round about**** a Californian Ranch, one like many others **

Five o'clock in the morning. A diffident slice of sun was peeking over the eastern dried hills, admiring the beautiful scenic sight of the enlightened facade of the human world, oblivious to the microscopic concerned man invisibly lying on a dark hillside, and unaware of both his enemies and the war he was fighting.

Walker was missing.

Bartowski had been captured.

Casey looked through his pair of binoculars. Four hundred meters in front of him, down in the valley, an old abandoned ranch was resting in the long morning shadows. According to the GPS signal, Chuck was being held in there.

"Colonel, how bad is the situation?" General Beckman asked once again, her impatient, yet harsh, voice coming out from his headphone.

Thinking of thousands of possible ways to convincingly lie to his superior, he heaved a resigned sigh.

He desperately wanted to say that he had everything under his control. But all he could say was a laconic "The worst."

Lying to his superior was not an option. Not now, not ever… unless he needed it.

"Did you find any trace of Agent Walker?"

Casey clenched his teeth. "Negative, ma'am. They could have taken her too."

When he had reached the crash site, he'd sieved the surroundings but he hadn't been able to find anything.

After the crash, Chuck and Sarah's off-roader had gone off, raising a thick cloud of ash, debris and dust that had covered anything within a thirty meters diameter. Included any visible trace or sign.

"Are there evidences on your assailants' identity?"

He winced. "It smells like the Ring's work. However, in all likelihood they were not directly after us; but after our mysterious observers." Casey stated. But after an instant he added quickly "They probably don't even know Bartowski's identity and importance."

"Alright, I have already given the order for an assault squad to reach your position, but it will take some time to get ready. Yesterday's computer attack at the Pentagon has activated every possible red alert, sending support squads all over the country." she explained.

"We can't wait that long," he affirmed, looking at the enemy agents that were refueling the cars with the gasoil from some petrol cans, "seems that they're about to leave."

A deep meaningful silence came from his earpiece, louder than any sound, simply and effectively highlighting the General's heavy mental steps towards a suffered decision.

"We can't take this risk, we can't let him remain in their hands." she said with a grave voice. "The asset is to be eliminated now. Shoot him down as soon as you have a clear line of fire." she ordered hastily, like an executioner with a talkative conscience, that quickly thrusts down his axe hoping to prevent his nightmares from becoming uglier.

Those words hit Casey harder than ever before, leaving him staring speechlessly at the silenced sniper rifle that was lying quietly next to him.

For the first time he saw it as a deadly, _life-takin_g rifle. It wasn't just an anti-enemy weapon anymore.

He himself, with his black fatigues, black baseball-hat, black gloves and darkened soul, had been playing the role of a mere angel of death for too long.

"Colonel Casey?" Beckman called, perceiving his hesitation.

He cleared his throat, and answered coldly "Yes, ma'am?"

"We're simply making sure he doesn't suffer too much. You know better than me how painful the enemy torture techniques can be." she reminded him.

A reluctant emptiness filled the dialogue between them, but it didn't last long.

"Am I allowed to speak honestly, General?" Casey asked resolutely.

"I'm listening."

He took a deep breath, gathering the necessary conviction to do something that he'd never done before.

The seriousness of his next words was already a heavy burden on his shoulders, even if he had not voiced them yet.

"I don't give a damn about your excuses, even if they let you sleep easier." he burst out, almost spitting the word _excuses_, unable to keep his thoughts chained inside his conscience anymore, "We're just killing him. As a matter of fact, this is nothing more than a cold-blooded murder."

"Colonel Casey," Beckman said quietly, as if she had expected that reaction, "Are you questioning an explicit order from your direct superior?"

"Indeed, ma'am." he replied respectfully. She definitely wasn't a naïve officer.

"That's not the first time. What's up with you, Colonel? Have you forgotten that there isn't any place for feelings in this job? Or just you don't care about it anymore?" she asked, but unexpectedly her voice didn't have any menacing tone. Instead she seemed slightly resigned, which was present also when she said "Are you aware that an act of serious insubordination like this could lead you in front of a court martial?"

He retorted firmly "That's unimportant."

"Like orders?" she calmly reprimanded him.

"I'm sorry General." he apologized, "This time I'll evaluate every single alternative by myself and I'll choose the option that meets _my_ two essential requirements…" he affirmed, "…the minimum amount of losses on our side and the maximum on theirs."

"Colonel, it's too…" she made as if to protest, but Casey stopped her before she could go on.

"Dangerous?" he snorted, "Oh well, I'll leave the risk evaluation to someone else, ma'am. That's not my job. This communication is over." he said, reaching for the mobile phone and ending the call.

He gave a little shiver when thousands of doubts flooded his mind, as he looked again through the binoculars.

* * *

In her office, the General leaned back against the chair and slowly joined her hands together, clasping her fingers and tiredly leaning her chin on them.

She let out an imperceptible sigh, "Good luck, Colonel. I hope you know what you're doing." she whispered.

What disciplinary measures was she supposed to take? She didn't have any answer.

* * *

Casey frowned as the barely perceptible sound of some unsure, precarious and limping steps behind his back revealed a presence.

A metallic click got to his ears as the newcomer cocked the slide of a gun.

It was certainly pointing at the nape of his neck.

_Shit_, thought the Colonel_._

Then a familiar voice left him astonished. It was throatier and more harsh than usual, but he couldn't confuse it with any other.

"Why did you say that?" Sarah asked.

"Walker?!" he grunted, quickly turning to her.

She could barely stand on her feet, a few meters away from him. Her face was half covered in reddish-brown blood that had poured out from a deep cut above her hairline. It was badly hidden under some red-striped blond wisps.

Her left arm was at her side, hanging from an unnaturally shaped shoulder.

_A__ badly dislocated shoulder_, thought Casey, wincing.

Numerous glass splinters were constellating the sleeve of her sweatshirt that wrapped the same arm. The teardrops from those countless little injuries had drawn thin red trails on her hand.

She was stronger than he'd have ever imagined, considering that she'd certainly been hiding inside the boot of Casey's car for hours, without letting out a single noise.

And his conviction grew firmer as he noticed the large blood stain that was colouring her jeans, right over her knee. The sharp edge of a steel piece, probably coming from the body of the off-roader, stood out from the side of her thigh.

And yet, her eyes were burning with a light he'd never seen before.

"Answer this, why did you say that to Beckman?" she insisted impatiently, "Just because of this?" she hinted, waving the .22 gun in her hand.

"Nope." was Casey's quiet answer. He snorted, "I didn't even know that you were there. How long have you been…"

"Always." she cut him short, "Why then?" Sarah inquired, closing her eyes to mere slits.

Casey shrugged, "Respect. Loyalty. Honor."

"Spare me this crap." she interrupted him, "Keep it for the disciplinary enquiry. Now, again, tell _me,_ why have you done that? It's not like you, it doesn't suit your 'yes-ma'am' style..."

He grunted, looking for an answer. One suitable for both Walker and himself to hear it. "Those who deal with this stuff daily, I guess they'd call it friendship. Or at least a kind of."

She knit her brow and the glimmer in her eyes flickered, as much as her grip on the gun. "But, then… Where the hell were you, when they caught Chuck?!" she yelled, regaining strength, "Why weren't you there when we needed your help?"

"I was reaching a better position."

She just blinked a couple of times.

"You were running away on your car towards south, and I was posted on an hillside that faced north. Do you remember now?"

"I… I think so." was her feeble answer.

"You had gone out of my sight." he explained. But several soundless seconds later he spontaneously and surprisingly added "Sorry, Walker."

Lowering her gun, she gave her head a little shake, trying to unravel the confused tangle of her thoughts, "Stop it, I… I guess it's me the one that has to apologize. I…" she passed the back of her armed hand on the forehead, groaning, "I was scared that you were a Ring agent."

Casey sneered, "Hey, Walker, now I'm supposed to cut your tongue with a sword in revenge for my sullied honor, you know?" he menaced, half joking.

"Yeah, you should…" she agreed, half serious.

"It's okay," he gave her a sympathetic nod. Even if he wasn't familiar with the feelings of other people, he was not insensitive, and it was crystal clear that she was still in shock from of the horrible accident. However, that didn't stop him from glancing at her and asking "And what about you?"

She frowned, "Me?"

"Why are _you_ still standing firm?"

As she answered in a whisper, a tender smile softened her face, "Those who deal with this stuff daily, I guess they'd call it…" as she continued her smile grew bigger, reaching the warmth of a dreamy beam, "…something _more_ than friendship."

That admission, even if partial and reticent, had the same effect of a powerful jet of steam coming out from a relief valve, lowering the overpressure of an engine that was pushing an obstinate boat at top speed against waves that were finally getting smaller and smaller.

Casey grunted a short laughter, briefly glancing at her. "Actually, I meant something else. Something a bit more _practical,_ regarding for example your physical injuries… Something like, 'did you steal some morphine from my first-aid kit?'… Ah, whatever." he said shrugging.

There was no way Sarah couldn't possibly hide the anything-but-slight blushing on her cheeks.

But it lasted only an instant, as she quickly recovered her cold blood and then, trying to get one more certainty in her world of precarious handholds, she narrowed her eyes and asked "Won't you follow your orders, then? Will you really disobey for him and… for me?"

He nodded once more, and that plain gesture had the same strength of the hundreds words written on the Declaration of Independence, "I'll get to the very bottom of this mess."

As he said that, the look in his eyes was totally sincere and firm. It was a sort of promise, a pledge.

A pact.

That was enough for her. She heaved a relieved sigh, as one of the countless shadows left her haunted blue eyes.

Someone else who she could completely and blindly rely upon. At least for that day.

It had the wonderful taste of a long-awaited novelty.

Suddenly he broke the silence that had grown between them, saying "Now that your hunger for answers seems to be satisfied, tell me this. Do you feel like you can sprawl there," he pointed the forefinger at the sniper rifle, "and shoot at the bad guys while I get closer to our… Well, _your_ beloved asset?"

She followed his finger with her eyes, glancing at the menacing but somehow reassuring weapon, and gave a little nod, "With one condition."

Casey raised an eyebrow, "What?"

"Fix my shoulder." she requested.

"It's gonna hurt."

"There's something that hurts even more." she replied decisively.

Casey silently nodded, remembering that morning when he'd thought Ilsa had died in that terrorist bombing. "Agreed. Then we'll take care of your leg."

"No, that's neither necessary nor advisable, at least for now. The injury is deep and I could lose too much blood," Sarah disagreed, "and then I won't be of any use."

Using her good arm, she picked up a dried piece of wood, wrapped it up in a tissue and put it between her teeth.

He cracked his knuckles, "Ready?"

She nodded.

Even if deadened by the wooden bit, a few seconds later a loud cry of pain raised to the cloudless blue sky, upsetting the quiet air surrounding the two agents.

* * *

**The ****Same Dark Room**

Chuck's head sprang up, his mouth agape and his eyes wide-open, frantically shifting their attention between the two windows in front of him.

"Sarah?" he murmured in a low, strangled voice, attentively listening to the silence and searching for something, not knowing what it was he was searching for.

But no answer came back to his ears, except his own gasping breath.

He strongly shook his head, as if that could chase away the dark thoughts that were tightening their grip on his hopes, threatening to tear them apart.

He was still trying to calm his beating heart when, all of a sudden, a door opened on his right and a bright blade of light cut the room into two slices, each one even darker than before.

Narrowing his eyes and letting them adjust to the new and unusual light, he could distinguish two shadowy figures closing in, outlined by a yellowish-white halo.

As the two silhouettes reached him, Chuck could just watch them passively, as they lifted him together with his chair and carried him upstairs.

"Hey guys, you know, now I understand why the ancient noblemen loved this kind of transport," he muttered, unsuccessfully trying to keep a cool attitude. His frightened eyes were a clear telltale sign. Nevertheless he carried on undaunted, "Although I'm quite sure they didn't have all those really uncomfortable seatbelts…"

When one of his watchdogs stared harshly at him, delivering a silent menace with his aggressive gaze, Chuck flashed on his features, as he'd hoped.

According to the information the intersect gave him, that man had been a DEA undercover agent until 2001. At that time three capital letters had been used to close his personal file, K.I.A.

Killed in action.

Another dead man walking.

_Another Ring agent._

_Damn._

That whole story was getting worse and worse.

* * *

**Outside**

Sarah had finally managed to reach her position behind the sniper rifle.

The pangs from her entire body were constantly keeping her awake, despite her tiredness.

"Watch for the recoil. Every shot is going to be really painful." Casey warned her. If she fainted, he could die straight after.

She winced, giving a nod of assent. "I know, but it doesn't matter. I deserve it." she affirmed, but noticing his questioning glance, she felt obliged to add "Since I left him. When we had the accident, I crawled away without him…" she said simply, as if those words could explain everything.

Indeed, they could.

That was the pilot light of her endurance. The fuel that kept the fire in her ocean-blue eyes alive and kicking.

The remorse for leaving Chuck, and the iron will to free him.

_No_, thought Casey, _her feelings for him are definitely not weakening her_.

"Walker?"

"Yeah?"

"What are you going to do with your _brilliant_ reassignment plan?"

She sighed heavily, biting her lower lip, "I dunno."

"For what it's worth, in my opinion you're the best handler the moron could be assigned to." he revealed with a nonchalant shrug. _Damn, I've let them contaminate me with their lady-feelings stuff! _he silently cursed himself, wondering if a bio-hazard suit would have been enough, or else he should have been going around with an anti-radiation suit.

She could just give her head a barely perceptible nod, astonished by Casey's unexpected disclosure. Her eyes were sparkling with a couple of unshed hopeful tears.

"One more thing, Walker." he added an instant later, "What I just said… You know, that lady-feelings thing, is to be considered strictly confidential, understood?"

She grinned, "Roger."

"And don't you dare telling the moron that I can apologize too." he growled, "For his own sake."

* * *

**Inside**

They had brought Chuck to a large and bare parlor, leaving him in the centre of the empty space.

"Hey, my balls are itching, could you please untie me or at least scratch me?" Chuck asked.

As the two guards silently walked away and let him alone, he winced and said in a low voice "No dice. I guess it would have worked better if I were Daniel Craig."

He looked around, slowly scanning the room. The large windows were miraculously unbroken, apart from some cracked panels, and the soft morning light was barely managing to pass through the thick coat of dirt and the few lopsided wooden boards nailed outside.

Four portable construction-site lamps were laying aside on their metallic skeleton. They were turned off and noiselessly surrounded him like a sleeping audience in front of a boring stage play.

Along the walls, he could notice many square-shaped stains, darker than the rest of the faded paint. They stood there as weak traces of the sumptuous furniture that once upon a time had decorated the living room.

Now, everywhere he turned to, he could see only hypnotically geometric spider webs, thick dust and rotten wood. And a couple of worm-eaten, rat-fleeced armchairs that someone had carelessly thrown apart in a corner.

Hanging from the ceiling there was a huge chandelier, covered with a large white cloth. It was suspended motionlessly, like the sheet of a soulless ghost frozen in mid-air for the eternity.

Chuck childishly tried blowing towards it, but a sudden pain remembered him of his injured ribcage, leaving him breathless.

He coughed, gritting his teeth and shrugging, "Ow, never mind, I wouldn't have moved it anyway…" he murmured to no one. But then he froze, standing still with bated breath as he heard another door opening behind his back.

A sound of slow, calm steps got more and more closer, causing Chuck to involuntarily shudder.

When those steps suddenly stopped, the four lamps came to life with a loud click, flooding the centre of the room with their shining light and wiping out every feeble shadow that had previously kept Chuck company. He had to close his eyes to mere slits, to alleviate the painful sensation of that blinding white explosion.

He still couldn't see the newcomer, but he could clearly feel his gaze piercing the nape of his neck.

"Who are you?" the stranger asked before Chuck could even say a word. His voice was monotonous, somewhat dull, and carried a slight German inflection.

* * *

"Casey, I can see him! In the floodlit room!" Sarah's voice announced with trepidation from Casey's headphone.

"Roger." he whispered.

He was slowly approaching to the ranch, hidden to the sight by a wooden fence, covered by a wall of tall weeds.

His hand was firmly holding the reassuring weight of a silenced semiautomatic gun.


	7. Black Guardian Angels vs White Tortures

_Here's the next one._

_As usual, many thanks to __**kroblues**__ for his patient and untiring work with the betareading, and for his precious support and hints too! And as usual complain to him if you want the new chapters to come out faster... *giggles*  
_

_My dear readers, I'll never get tired of asking you a feedback: did you like/dislike/love/hate it? Please, just spend a couple of seconds of your spare time to let me know if you have any suggestion, hope, criticism, or whatsoever. It's a simple deed, but means a lot to me. ;) Thanks!_

_ED  
_

* * *

**Inside an Abandoned Ranch**

"Who do you work for? Feds, National Security or CIA?" the mysterious voice inquired, this time with a harsher tone.

Its owner kept himself out of Chuck's visual field.

"D-don't, ah, you think that's a bit rude of you to start a dialogue without introducing yourself first?" Chuck said, trying to stall, "At least, since I'm the guest here. In exchange for your ID, I'll turn a blind eye to the fact that you're holding me here against my will. But just because it's you…" he proposed with a complicity tone.

"You think you're smart, don't you?" he asked, "Just because you left your wallet at home."

Chuck bravely grinned, "Great idea that, don't you agree?"

The other man put a hand on his shoulder, "Oh, don't overestimate your abilities." he said, bending forward and getting closer to his ear, "You've just been lucky that we've found only the burned remains of your mobile phone into the wreck of your car, otherwise…"

"What?!" Chuck cried, interrupting him, "NO!"

The German frowned and moved one step back, confused and surprised by his overreaction.

"That iPhone cost me a month's salary, not to mention the twenty five hours of overtime!" Chuck moaned.

The other impatiently clenched and unclenched his fists a couple of times. Then he said, calmly, "Ah, my boy, my boy, I must warn you, I'm about to lose my temper. Now tell me, how did you get in touch with him?"

Chuck raised his eyebrows, pretending to be taken aback, "Him who?"

He gave a cold laugh, "You insignificant and presumptuous boy… You like driving people mad, don't you? You must be an NSA blockhead. You know, the ones who always seem to be out of context, even in their own office."

Chuck couldn't help grinning when he thought about Casey playing the dj and vocalist at Sarah's High School Reunion party.

"Ah, I'm very glad that you're having fun and enjoying this little talk," said the German, a bit too obliging, "Okay, I've been playing around with you for a while but now, if you don't mind, it's getting late and I'd like to talk about the man you were waiting for, tonight."

Chuck nodded, "Oh, _him_…" he said, narrowing his eyes as if he'd just remembered of an old school mate. "Well, you know, that's classified information." he stated with a sorrowful expression.

"That's a shame." the other whined, "Never mind. I wish you good luck. Goodbye Mr. No-named-man." he said, giving Chuck a pat on his shoulder.

As he heard some steps behind his back, Chuck frowned and, without thinking about it, he asked "Hey, are you leaving just like that?!"

"No," whispered the German, but his voice was dangerously closer than Chuck would have ever expected. "You're the one who's leaving _forever_…" he hissed, violently grabbing his brown curls and suddenly pulling back his head, "…if you don't take this whole thing a bit more seriously!"

Chuck felt the burning icy steel of a knife pressing on his throat.

He had always been deadly scared of needles, but he had to admit that that knife did its job wonderfully too.

"What was Mr. Larkin about to give you?"

"Lar…?" _Larkin?!_

The name smashed him like the _Armageddon_ asteroid hitting a rusty satellite. And he didn't have Bruce Willis to ask for help. Also, the Intersect seemed to be affected by his feelings, showing him a flash on a succession of blank sheets of paper.

Chuck's lips mechanically moved to mould an astonished 'what?', but no sound accompanied their silent question.

Unaware of his astonishment, the sand in the eternal hourglass of Time carelessly continued to flow, without him even noticing it.

Left breathless, voiceless and deaf by the news, he didn't even feel the kick that his jailer gave to his back, and he noiselessly faced the dusty ground that was coming towards him at full speed.

His shocked mind barely registered the impact with the ground.

* * *

"That filthy bastard!" cursed Sarah.

Casey reached the two black cars and the SUV parked beside the house. "What's up?"

"Someone is beating him." she said between her teeth.

"We'll pay him off with 50% interest… at least. But now I need you to stay focused and show me the way."

She heaved a meaningful sigh, swallowing hard.

Casey sneaked towards the vehicles, guided by Sarah's voice coming from his earpiece, "Two guards around the north-eastern corner of the building. Another one is five meters from you, behind that black SUV. He's busy lighting up a cigarette. You should be able to neutralize the target whenever you want, if you approach him from south."

Casey snorted and, instead, stood up and cheekily strode towards him from north, cockily saying "Hey, need a lighter?"

The other didn't even raise his eyes, too busy trying to get his own lighter to work, and just answered "Geez, that would be great, dude."

Those words were the last sound he emitted, as Casey knocked him out with a powerful blow to the temple.

As Sarah begun protesting about his rough-and-ready style, he defended himself, saying "The gravel on the ground could have warned him that I was coming."

She huffed, slowly releasing the tension, "Try flying next time. Or maybe you could lose some weight…"

Casey grabbed the unconscious man and hastily dragged him away."I've always thought that cigarettes were deadly." he whispered, panting from the strain.

"And what about cigars?" Sarah jokingly asked.

Casey snorted, "Those extend life, especially if they're the cigars of victory."

* * *

"Hmm, interesting, you're tougher than I expected." said the man without a face, grabbing Chuck's chair and pulling him up, back into his original position, "Maybe I underestimated you…"

"Aaaaah!" Chuck cried out, when he finally realized that a new sharp ache, coming from his bleeding nose, had added up to the pain from his ribcage.

"…or maybe not," the other corrected himself, shrugging. "You sure are quite disarming."

He started yelling "Aah! My nose! My nose!"

The German ignored him and continued, "However, since it's extremely unlikely that you mastered your acting skills in the last few minutes, I'm forced to deduce that you had already heard that name before." the German said, "Nevertheless, it's crystal clear that you didn't put that name together with the man he belongs to." he ended, giving his head a little shake of disapproval.

Chasing back the pain, Chuck hid himself behind a curtain of silence, insistently staring at his toes.

"He did get in touch with you," that was an assertion, not a question, "and you bureaucrat-infested and over financed secret agencies didn't have any clue of his identity. You have to agree with me that that's quite embarrassing for you."

That said, his steps resounded into the room as he slowly walked around Chuck, still keeping himself on the edge of the blinding cage of light, hidden like a shadow in a moonless night.

_thump… thump… thump… thump…_

His walking was rhythmic and regular on the wooden floor.

_thump… thump… thump… thump…_

Chuck could see only his footwear. A pair of shiny, elegant shoes, apparently indifferent to any grain of dust or sand.

_thump… thump… thump… thump…_

* * *

"Done," affirmed Casey after he'd shot down the last visible guard that had been charged with keeping the manor exterior under surveillance. "Have you found any trace of the enemies inside the building?"

"Two or more shadows on the second floor. They're going round every window. I bet that at least one of them is a sniper." she revealed.

"Hey Blondie, thanks for warning me before!" Casey said sarcastically.

She smiled briefly, "Don't worry, they can't see you. You've always been covered from their sight by the front porch or the balconies."

He grunted, "All right, all right. Any other swords of Damocles hanging on my head?"

"Plenty of 'em."

Casey winced, "Don't spoil me, I could get used to it."

* * *

Chuck could still feel the insistent gaze on him.

_t__hump… thump… thump… thump…_

He quashed the urge to look up, and persisted in staring down at the ground.

_thump… thump… thump… thump…_

A thought had silently slipped into his mind. A thought shaped as a face. The face of a girl with blond hair and magnetic blue eyes. _Not to mention all the rest…_

_thump… thump… thump… thump…_

He needed her. He desperately needed to know if she was alive.

_thump… thump… thump… thump…_

He needed to know if he still had areason to keep fighting.

_thump… thump… thump… thump…_

He blinked, suddenly perturbed. _Larkin. Who would have ever said._

_thump… thump… thump… thump…_

Giving his head a little shake, he admitted to himself, _of course no one would have thought about that… Bryce's dead, for God's sake! Or… at least he should be! _

_thump… thump… thump… thump…_

_thum-thump__._

After a couple of rounds, seeing that Chuck continued to ignore him, the German had stopped right in front of him. _Yeah_, that slim, awkward guy was definitely disarming, he thought.

He'd been able to completely detach himself with a surprising ease.

All of a sudden, the unnamed man decided to do something unusual for him. Normally he would have carefully restrained from showing himself to any stranger, but he was deeply intrigued by the man in front of him. So he stepped forward, and his dark tailored suit peremptorily invaded the white field of light.

_thump… thump… thum-thump._

The previous interruption in the rhythmical flow of his steps didn't escape Chuck, and that anomaly had taken him back to reality. So he was trying with all his strength to think of something, _anything_ else, but his mind was a useless blank.

"That girl, Sarah, she was outstanding, wasn't she?" the other asked, almost innocently.

_Was…?_

Chuck started and, in the end, he instinctively raised his wide-open eyes.

And he couldn't help swallowing hard.

* * *

"Crap," burst out Casey, snorting as he touched the cut on his eyebrow with his fingertips and the one on his chin. The last opponent had been a tough one.

"I've sent the guard in the kitchen to sleep." he calmly informed Sarah. He raised his hand and looked at the makeshift weapon that he'd just used, smirking, "They don't make frying pans like they used to…" he added, thinking of the good old times with a saddened expression. "Walker, check the nerd's situation." he ordered as he got back to the present.

Her reply came fast "I'm already on it."

"I would have bet that." he sighed.

"They're still talking." she reported emotionlessly, glossing over the fact that her mind was upset by Chuck's panic-stricken expression. _Chuck, hold on, trust me!_

"Okay, it's your turn now. Take down the two sentinels upstairs." ordered the Colonel.

"Wait, I need both of them to be within sight." Sarah affirmed calmly.

* * *

_Why__ the hell did he say that Sarah 'was'? And…_

Chuck blinked twice.

_An a__lbino?!_

The German standing before Chuck was a statuesque albino, around his fifties. He was tall and bright as an ancient Greek hero, carved from a single block of snow-white marble and used as a mannequin by an Italian stylist.

The only two visible imperfections that were staining his face were his light-grey eyes.

He didn't bear any resemblance to any albino Chuck had ever seen. Well, to be honest, the sole albino he'd ever seen was the monk in The Da Vinci Code… _Luckily_, the one in front of him had nothing in common with that fanatic, evil, murderer, movie character.

_Except the 'evil' part, of course._

_And maybe the '__murderer' one…_

He rather looked like a better-rounded-off Jean-Claude Van Damme that had somehow mistaken a bleach bottle for a foam-bath one.

When the German cracked a smile, Chuck didn't even notice his perfect set of teeth between his pale lips. All he could think to was that that man had the expression of a cruel bastard.

"Condolences for your loss." the other delivered the blow, after an unmistakably fake sigh.

And then, almost unexpectedly, Chuck flashed.

He abruptly shut his eyes and lowered his head, hoping to successfully hide the Intersect from the German's eyes.

* * *

"Here's one of the bad guys." Sarah mumbled, carefully scanning the upstairs windows.

Casey nodded, saying into the microphone "When you're ready, let me know."

"Wait… Target Number One is talking with someone, probably Number Two." The sniper scope allowed her to see that the man was turned towards the inside of the house and was waving an empty diet coke bottle, eloquently pointing at it.

"Walker, I don't give a…" he began complaining.

"Hush!" she silenced him, "Casey, is there a fridge in the kitchen?"

"Yeah, though it's a pretty old one, why the hell are you asking?"

"Is it working?"

"At full speed." He snorted, "It's not an A+ class, if it's what you wanted to know… Walker?" he called, waiting for an explanation.

She winced, "Get ready to welcome a guest!"

* * *

"Sarah… What a beautiful name." continued the albino.

_Don't __listen to him, he must be lying! She's alive, she must be!_ Wiping away all his fears for Sarah, Chuck looked again up at him, but this time he forced a knowing grin on his face. "Not as beautiful as yours." he picked at the other.

The albino smiled creepily and shook his head, "I'm afraid you won't never hear my name." he said as his eyes got sadder.

"Oh, yeah, I bet that your _actual_ name is completely different from the one you used when you where organizing that bombing in… Hum, where was it?" Chuck pretended, slowly moistening his lips with his tongue, "Damn, it's on the tip of my tongue!"

The German furrowed his brows, but quickly recovered his composure. "You must've watched too many action movies."_ Interesting, the boy is counterattacking. Let's see how sharp his claws are._ "So you thought that I was a terrorist and you've gone blindly on. Well, let me say that yours was quite a banal choice, that of the 'bombing' thing, I mean."

"Could be, but it happens that I'm talking about a _nuclear_ bombing. Speaking of which, I think that your choice to buy a nuclear warhead from the Koreans was _utterly_ banal. They're notoriously untrustworthy."

The other burst out laughing. His laugh was a bit excessively deep and overbearing. "Oh boy, you're merely listing all the clichés of the genre. Nice try, though."

"It's a shame that we were able to stop you in time, intercepting the container hanging under that rusty cargo ship, wasn't it?" he winced at the albino's dumbstruck reaction, "Geez! Don't tell me that you _really_ never suspected someone else's hand behind that sinking?! That's a total lack of style from you…"

The albino's laughter grew stronger, but the amusement in his eyes was rapidly fading down, like a cat that had got tired of playing around with a mouse. A little, insolent mouse that had managed to scratch his nose. "I must admit that you're really entertaining, but I'm getting a bit tired of your nonsense, however fanciful it is."

"Oh, now I remember!" Chuck nodded, and the corners of his mouth slightly twitched upwards. "1995, off the coast of Cape Town. You were going by the name of Dieter Rosenthal and the cargo was the San Isidro, sailing under the Chilean flag. It's a pity that the CIA hasn't caught you, either that time or later," he continued, "when you recklessly tried to get that awful child trade from Weihai to La Paz off the ground."

After a few instants of waiting, Chuck winced with annoyance.

He was curious to see if an albino could turn paler, but the harsh light didn't allow him to see any change in the color of the German's skin.

However, while a panicked look crossed Dieter's eyes, as a black lightning crossing the white sky in the negative of a photograph, the albino could undeniably show a stunned expression.

_Ah__! Knowledge is power!... Or powder, as Jeff's mother would say._

* * *

"_A_ guest, you said?" whispered Casey, stepping back from the door that lead to the corridor. He had disarmed an enemy and was now keeping him like a shield, with an arm wrapped tight around his throat and pressing the barrel of his gun at his temple.

"Why?" inquired Sarah's hesitant voice from his headphone.

The Colonel gazed at the two men that were pointing at him as many guns. "I'll tell you later…" he murmured, glancing around for some way out of that standoff.

* * *

_Damn that 'power of knowledge'!_ thought Chuck, _brilliant idea that, getting your own personal torturer actually pissed off, while your hands are handcuffed and your arms, legs and buttocks are tightly tied up to a chair!_

Regaining his composure, Dieter Rosenthal gave an icy sneer and said "Did it really take you fourteen years to make all the proper logical connections? And, the same, I'm quite sure that you found me just by chance."

_Think fast, Chuck, think fast!_"Well, that's not completely true…"

"No?! Do you really think so? I've been going undisturbed around your country for the past ten years! I've made agreements, pacts," he growled, "I've become part of the most powerful organization to act behind the scenes of American history and you won't stop us, not now, not ever!"

_Damn__, he's definitely mad! Stay focused, Chuck, stay focused! Think like Casey, what would he do?_ he winced, he would have surely faced death with a defiance glimmer in his eyes, calling his executioner every name under the sun. He couldn't help imagining Casey in place of Mel Gibson, in _Braveheart_, screaming at the top of his voice 'for you, Sir!' addressing Reagan, instead of the original 'freedom!' scream…

He couldn't hold back a smile as he said to Rosenthal "Sorry, but I haven't seen you on the Forbes or Times covers. Which month did they publish the interview with you?" he asked.

The other gaped at Chuck, left wordless by his attitude. But that respite didn't last long, since an evil grin appeared on his face, as he cracked his knuckles and stepped towards him, threatening "I'll make you regret your impudence!"

A cold shiver of fear run down Chuck's spine. _How would Sarah act?_ he felt a pang at the very thought of her. He shut his eyes tight, trying to confine the apprehension in a corner of his heart and focus on something else. "Wait, wait, wait!" he shouted, "How did you end up working for the Ring?"

The sadist expression on his face flickered, leaving some space to bewilderment, "I'm not in the mood to have conversations. However, that's none of your business, my boy. Not anymore." he retorted, raising his fist.

Time seemed to stop, as Chuck's mind was spinning at top speed, groping for a rope which he could cling to before he reached the worst waterfall of his life._ What would've Bryce done? I don't know, besides, I'm not him! _he thought, _Whoever else?! Hell, I don't know! Devon? Morgan?_ he silently cursed himself with frustration,_ why don't you include Bruce Willis too, you idiot? _

All of a sudden, he opened his eyes wide.

He didn't remember if Bruce had ever done something like that in one of his films, but to Chuck it seemed fitting to his style. Maybe in some _Die Hard_…


	8. Run Towards Her!

_A bow to __**kroblues**__, a great betareader._

_Sorry for the delay, it's my fault, I had made a ton of errors in this chapter._

_If you liked it, review it. If you didn't, review it anyway._

* * *

"Casey, what's going on?! I haven't got a clear view of the kitchen," Sarah whispered with an alarmed tone, "all the windows are barred!"

She heard him clearing his throat and saying aloud, evidently addressing someone else, "Three against one, well, that's not nice of you, or fair."

He couldn't talk to her freely and was surrounded by three enemy agents. _Message received._

She cursed, hastily trying to elaborate a plan. A resolute sparkle lit her eyes as she said "Okay, Casey, listen carefully. I can see where the gas pipe gets into the wall. Now tell me, can you reach the south-western corner?"

"_Yeah_, guys, I can understand your barely repressed anger, but I think we can resolve this situation peacefully." he came out with.

_Okay_, she nodded, "When your guests are lined up with the oven, say… well… say… pineapple, yeah."

An amused smile briefly lit Sarah's face as she imagined Casey rolling his eyes, when he let out a reluctant "Great…"

* * *

Chuck slowly straightened his shoulders, staring Rosenthal in his glacial eyes. "Aren't you forgetting something?" he whispered in a voice barely audible.

The albino came closer and bent towards him, hissing his question "And what am I forgetting, if I may ask?"

Their faces were as close as never before.

Chuck cleared his throat, "That my head isn't tied…" he murmured, taking a deep breath. Then he clenched his teeth and delivered a sudden strong blow with his forehead, breaking the German's perfect nose with a loud crack.

Rosenthal screamed out loud. He drew back groaning and stammering, with hands cupped on his face, but after a couple of steps he tripped over the wire of a spotlight and heavily fell to the ground, dirtying his expensive suit with the dust.

Even on the other side Chuck shouted in pain and, bouncing back after the clash, he tilted backwards and fell to the ground, roughly landing on his back. _Geez! Why does the hero not even turn a hair on TV?!_

Also, his broken ribs had resumed twinging insistently in his chest, and as if it wasn't enough, he couldn't find anything useful to untie himself. Nothing sharp enough.

_Life's getting better and better, isn't it?_

* * *

"Release him!" the oldest one of Casey's opponents said, nodding to his hostage.

The man who had just spoken was around his fifties, and his skin showed the typical wrinkles of a life lived in the open air. Casey could see that he was slightly limping, preferring not to shift his weight onto a bandaged foot. "Put down that weapon and nobody will be harmed!" the veteran ordered.

_Bullshit_, he thought, "If you really believe it, why don't you do it first?" _Come to daddy, toddlers, take some other steps forward…_

"Screw you, idiot! Who the hell do you think you're dealing with?!" burst out the second enemy agent, the youngest of the two, but the first one held up a hand to silence him and stated "You're trapped in a corner. This is gonna end badly if you don't surrender, don't you get it?"

They were gingerly heading towards him, each at one side of the massive table in the centre of the room._ C'mon, one more step… One more step!_

Seeing that Casey didn't have any intention to cooperate, the veteran asked, "Okay, let's start with a simple question, who are you?"

Casey gave a tug to his human-shield, subtly reminding him to cooperate. "I'm, ah, a…" _now!_ "a pineapple!"

An astonished expression popped up on their faces, but it abruptly vanished when an explosion of wooden splinters, accompanied by three loud thuds, came out from the thin wall, right above the gas cooker.

The succession of three bullets flew throughout the room, hitting the younger enemy agent powerfully and hurling his body over the table. The deadly burst narrowly missed the other one, who promptly hit the deck, trying to shelter from the attack.

Casey swiftly knocked his captive unconscious with the butt of his gun, raising an arm to protect his eyes from the splinters that were flying in every direction.

As soon as the atmosphere began to calm after the storm, both the Colonel and his sole opponent left rapidly stood up, facing each other, with their guns leveled to their respective heads.

"It seems that we can't help relapsing again and again into the same old stall situations of Hollywood…" pointed out Casey.

* * *

Chuck and Rosenthal had heard the sound of that turmoil too, coming from one of the rooms next to their one.

The German quickly got up again, drew his handgun, a reliable Sig Sauer, and walked towards Chuck with a determined expression.

As the man returned into his field of view, Chuck could see the drops of blood on his starched dress-shirt, but he was most of all spellbound by the reddish smears that stained his surreal-white face. And of course by the look in his eyes too.

A look of pure hatred.

Instinctively, Chuck made as if to apologize like a scolded puppy, but he managed to restrain himself just in time, before his mouth could make his situation worse.

"This interruption is quite annoying." Rosenthal said as he reached Chuck. He slowly raised his gun, ruthlessly saying "Farewell."

Chuck started while his mind shouted a desperate call for help. Just one name, indissolubly bound to its soft blond wisps and gorgeous blue eyes. A name entwined to his soul.

* * *

Sarah gasped. _Chuck!_

After she'd helped Casey, Sarah was moving her rifle to take down the enemy sniper, when she'd seen Chuck falling to the ground.

And now that sort of pale, ethereal, bleeding ghost was pointing a gun at him.

_If he __can bleed, he can die_, someone had once said.

_But__ if he is threatening to kill Chuck, then he _has_ to die._

She was aiming at the bastard when she suddenly felt a bullet rending the air just few feet above her head, followed by the loud rumbling of a rifle shot.

She winced. The other sniper had found her and was applying the most effective counter-sniper tactic: as soon as you see your foe, strike him down.

Ordinary people finding themselves in that kind of situation would have been torn between the longing for saving their own lives and the desire, however weak, to do the right thing.

On one hand, ordinary civilians would have chosen the first option, running away as far as their legs and their lungs allowed them, blinding the eyes of their conscience with every humanly lie that crossed their imaginative mind, and secretly hoping for some godly forgiveness.

On the other hand, ordinary agents would have acted against their instincts, as they had been trained to do, choosing to fulfil their task no matter what.

Nevertheless their reaction would have been still too slow.

But then again, Sarah didn't fall within any of those categories, and it took her less than a thousandth of second to reach a decision.

The enemy sniper had to wait for his hour to come.

She bitterly smiled while taking aim. _It's not my job to protect you, Chuck, it has become my purpose._

Another bullet reached her position, knocking into the dusty ground, closer to her right arm.

She was neither an ordinary girl nor an ordinary agent.

She was just a girl-agent who had fallen in love.

* * *

The entire window exploded as the subsonic bullet pierced it, flinging pieces of glass all over the ground.

A red plume rose from Rosenthal's arm that held the pistol, caused by a shot that was originally meant to perforate his chest.

Unfortunately the impact with the window had deflected its trajectory slightly, but enough to spare his life.

The man let out a loud cry of pain, holding tight his injured forearm. However, he reacted rapidly to the momentary shock and crouched swiftly, picking up his gun with the unhurt hand and running in shelter under one of the remaining undamaged windows.

In the meantime Chuck had been awkwardly rolling on himself until he'd finally managed to reach a sharp glass blade.

Skillfully guided by the Intersect, he got rid of the adhesive tape that was really starting to get on his nerves, and in an instant he found himself free.

Oblivious of the sharp pangs coming from his ribcage, he leaped to his feet and spontaneously gave a kick to the hateful chair, then sprinted to the closest exit from that earthly hell, speedily knocking it open.

Between the softened rifle shots that were coming from upstairs, the rumbling of several gunshots accompanied his running as many bullets whistled around him. But luckily for him, Rosenthal wasn't a good shooter when he was forced to be left-handed.

As he got out of the room, Chuck quickly stopped to slam the solid panel of the door behind his back, and then he frantically fumbled with the lock until he was able to block it.

Heaving a sigh of relief between his wheezy breaths, he enjoyed the new deathly hush that flooded the house as every weapon stopped spitting its lead words. But when he raised his eyes again and looked around, he was left agape by the scene that awaited him.

"Moron?!" the Colonel said astonished, glancing at him, "What the hell…?!"

"Oh God! Is it really you or am I just daydreaming?!" he replied, grinning at the sight of Casey, but then his smile immediately froze as he realized that he'd burst right into a delicate stall situation.

Casey and another man were facing each other and waiting for the first one who would have started the slaughter, causing a sort of homicide-suicide.

"You?!" the enemy agent burst out, addressing Chuck, "You ruined my foot, asshole!" he whined, barely moving his gaze from Casey's figure.

"Oh, it's you!" Chuck muttered, recognizing the man, "I, ah, think I should apologize for that despicable incident and… um, thank you for saving my life tonight, I… I mean it."

"Enough!" barked Casey, "Now that we're done with the introductions, could you please sod off!" he shouted. "Not you, idiot!" he added a second later addressing Chuck, since he was slowly sneaking towards the door that led in the hallway.

Chuck opened his mouth to protest, saying that it wasn't his fault if he had not specified the subject, but he suddenly flashed. His eyes wobbled and in no time he raised the piece of glass, which had been hidden in Chuck's hand since he'd used it to untie himself. With a skilled motion he threw it towards the uninjured foot of the enemy agent.

The glass broke as it reached its target, but a long enough fragment pierced the thin cloth of the enemy's sneakers and caused him to start.

Screaming out loud, the man hastily moved his hands towards the kitchen counter, searching for any handhold within reach, too busy to be aware of the mistake that he was making.

In fact, Casey swiftly stepped forward, treading unmercifully on the agent's bandaged foot like a tank, and he roughly bashed the enemy's face with an elbow.

"Ow! That must've hurt!" exclaimed Chuck, grimacing and raising a hand to his mouth, as the enemy agent fell down unconscious.

Casey glanced at him and, without giving him enough time to say even a word, he barked "Alright, let's get out of here!"

While hurrying towards the exit, Casey noticed the handcuffs hanging from Chuck's right wrist and questioningly raised an eyebrow, "How did you unlock that?" he asked motioning at the steel ring that was swinging under his forearm.

"Oh, this?" Chuck replied, with another interrogative look, "I didn't unlo…" but then he stopped, realizing the swelling on his other hand and the excruciating pain that came from it. "Aaaah!" he cried, starting and holding his breath, "Casey, aah, do you remember when you told me that handcuffs are a cinch, thanks to this tiny bone in my thumb that's really easy to break?"

Casey nodded, sneering as he guessed where Chuck was getting at.

"Well I, ah, I guess that the Intersect knows about it too…" he affirmed, between clenched teeth, "It clearly works, but _hell_ does it hurt!"

The Colonel put his finger in one ear, trying to ignore Chuck's whimpering as he spoke in the microphone, "Agent Walker, you're gonna pay for your brilliant idea! I've never felt so idiotic in my whole life!" he grumbled.

_I'm a pineapple… _he snorted, incredulously shaking his head.

Chuck's head had sprung up as he heard him calling Sarah. _Thank God, she's alive!_ A relieved beam spread through his face as he felt all his fears being swept away by a warm desert breeze.

But, as Casey went on speaking, that breeze soon reversed and turned into a raging cold wind that brought back all the dreadful rubbish. "Walker, do you copy? I've got the asset and…" he knit his brow, "Walker?" he called, while a shadow of anxiety darkened his eyes. "Walker?!"

Feeling as if the whole world was wobbling, Chuck suddenly grabbed the Colonel's arm with a strength that he didn't even know he had. He inhaled deeply and dared to ask, shakily, "Casey, where's Sarah? How is she?"

The Colonel glanced at him with a dead serious expression. All of a sudden a clatter reached their ears from outside the house. It was the roar of a car engine going high and the noise of four tyres clawing the ground. "Shit, the big wheel must be leaving!" the Colonel cursed, but Chuck kept on his obstinate 'I-don't-give-a-darn' expression.

"Casey!" he called with bated breath, turning paler and paler at every second, "Sarah?!" he groaned once more.

"I don't know." was the harsh answer that he got back.

Everything around him become surreal, as if a trapdoor had opened under his feet, causing him to fall into a suffocating bad dream.

Casey sighed, "Follow me, she should be up there." he said, pointing at the hillside that stood out in front of them and heading towards it.

At those words, Chuck's mind finally lost control of his body, allowing the throbbing heart to take charge.

And its guidelines were crystal clear. _Just run to her as fast as you can._

As if he'd bareback mounted a thoroughbred, Chuck outran Casey and started the race of his life. A race in which there wasn't any world record or gold medal waiting for him at the finish line, but just another opportunity to dive into her blue eyes and to feel her blond hair between his fingers.

He hoped and prayed to have at least one more chance to lean a kiss on her lips.

Running like the wind, he barely attempted to dodge the dried bushes that pitilessly stretched their branches towards him, scratching his flesh through the light trousers.

_Could be__ the worst day of your life, Bartowski, _Casey thought as he hurried after him. _I went through it and, for what it's worth, I wish you don't have to._ He took out his mobile phone and called the reinforcements to find out how long would it take for them to get there, and to ask for a quick medical extraction.

* * *

He was running so blindly that he nearly missed her position, but as he glanced over his shoulder to check Casey's position, he noticed her black clothed figure lying in the dust about ten meters on his right.

She was painfully motionless.

Chuck's heart skipped some of its furious beat as his lungs stopped providing the body with the needed air.

After what seemed to be an eternity, his legs mechanically plodded towards her, moving faster and faster at every step, whereas his sight was becoming blurrier from the lack of oxygen.

When he fell heavily to his knees, next to her, he was so close to fainting that it required a great effort to force himself to inhale some pure, fresh, morning air. As soon as he felt its taste once again he remembered how much he depended on that insubstantial lifeblood.

He had to blink several times before his eyes could focus on her body. She was laying prone, still in the firing posture, her face was hidden against the butt of the sniper rifle and her right forefinger was still wrapped around the trigger.

He hardly managed to choke back tears.

She'd saved his life once more.

Maybe for the last time.

"Sarah?" he called in a barely perceptible whisper, still gasping for breath. She didn't seem to have any deadly wound, except countless scratches and snicks.

He bent to her and tenderly brushed her blond hair, and the warm sensation of her head raised a wind that mercifully blew on the embers of his hopes.

He heaved a shaky, deep sigh of relief and his eyes filled with joyful tears as he realized fully that she was still alive.

_She's breathing, she's breathing…__ Sarah's breathing!_

Heartened by that awareness he carefully turned her to a supine position, wincing as he heard her moan of pain when he moved her left shoulder; the dislocated one. "Sorry, sweetie," he whispered in her ear, finally allowing himself to smile.

But he couldn't help flinching as he saw the dried blood on her face and the horrific piece of steel that was stuck into her leg. "Oh God, oh God! Sarah…" he groaned.

As he felt her pulse he found it faint and slow. But it was enough. _Enough…_ Forgetful of his broken ribs, he held her head against his chest, caressing her cheek and gently leaving a soft kiss on her brow.

He stood there for a while, diligently brushing her ruffled hair back, behind her ear.

He didn't get aware of Casey's presence until he spoke. "She must have fainted as soon as she saw that you were out of danger." he affirmed. _Straight after striking down the enemy sniper… quite impressive,_ he mutely admitted with surprise, even though he was a hard-to-daze soldier.

Chuck nodded and said "Yeah. You know, she saved my life." He was visibly proud of her.

All of a sudden he moved closer to her face and let his lips brush against hers, stealing a kiss that she wouldn't possibly have given him, if she had been awake. In fact…

"Ow!" he winced as a sudden weak slap hit his cheek.

Sarah moaned again, muttering in a low voice something that sounded, more or less, like "No, Chuck, I'm your handler and you're my asset. We aren't supposed to develop feelings towards each other." and Chuck smiled, thinking that the first thing that she'd done straight after coming round had been repeating a rule, probably written in capital letters in every CIA training manual.

Her eyes were still closed and her voice was drowsy and throaty, nevertheless it was the most beautiful sound Chuck had ever heard in his whole life. Especially since she added "But, please, stay… here with me some… more time." she begged, nestling against him, dead tired by the last endless mission.

A ten thousand watts grin lighted up his face, reaching up to both his eyes and his heart. "You bet I will," he murmured.

_Let my arms be your castle, this once._

When Casey heard the Agency chopper approaching and felt the air throbbing from its whirling blades, the sunlight had finally reached their spot on the hillside too, instilling some warmth in their exhausted bodies.

* * *

**The New Castle**

"You can take that dumb grin off your face, Agent Carmichael," General Diane Beckman said harshly, from the central screen to begin the late afternoon meeting, "otherwise I will personally erase it."

Chuck, who was helping Sarah to take her place on a chair, froze immediately and stood still right behind her, holding her crutch like Linus with his security blanket.

"According to your preliminary report, last night's operation was an almost complete failure. Mr. Rosenthal has managed to escape, we are left with nothing more than a bunch of low-rank agents that don't know anything else about the Ring apart from their own daily task, and as if this wasn't enough, we have no clue on our mysterious 'fan'."

Chuck frowned, _did I get that right? Was that an attempt at irony?!_ he asked himself, opening his mouth to voice his curiosity, but Casey silenced him with a slap on the back of his head, "Ouch!" he complained, staring severely at him.

"Colonel Casey," Beckman scolded him, "I won't tolerate any other action from you that could harm the Intersect." she said, casually disregarding the order that she'd given just a few hours before.

Casey glanced at the nerd. The value of his life was having ups and downs like a share in the Stock Exchange. However he and Sarah had previously agreed that Chuck didn't need to hear about the execution order, as they both were afraid of the effects that that revelation could cause.

"Understood, ma'am." the Colonel agreed, between clenched teeth, "No harming the guy's head till he has the Intersect out of it."

"No, wait, you actually meant 'no harming the _whole_ guy', didn't you?" Chuck asked the General, but all he got back was a bitterly cold gaze. So he stepped beside Sarah, and silently sat on a chair, casting a worried glance at Casey.

"You know, it's not nice to shield yourself behind a girl." Sarah mocked him in a low voice, barely hiding a smile.

Chuck was about to reply to her, but the General's voice called his attention, as she addressed him, "Tell me, Agent Carmichael," she began, "what should I do? Should I ignore a clear threat and leave you with your team, even if I have serious doubts about your safety? Or should I confine you to a bunker and dismantle the whole of operation Bartowski?" she asked, but her eyes were not even remotely as sour as her words seemed to be. Indeed, they apparently had a truly concerned light behind their strictness.

Chuck frowned, "Ma'am, may I point out that this morning we managed to get out of the worst scenario ever possible? We were injured, pulled apart, and without the possibility of waiting for reinforcements, but we still successfully defended ourselves. You could consider this one as a sort of 'training mission' for the Intersect 2.0, a beta-test…" he suggested, "Or if you prefer you could lock me away somewhere underground and then you could just wait there in your office, sitting on your comfortable chair." he gave a shrug, "Who knows, maybe someday our mysterious 'fan' will show up and ask for your autograph." he said with a provocative tone.

"Can you at least _try_ to be serious, Bartowski?" Casey grunted at him, between his teeth.

But Beckman went on as if nothing had happened, "Don't you get it, Agent Carmichael? Your duty, your purpose as spies, is not just to survive. You aren't just asked to merely _defend_ yourselves, you have to defend something far greater than your lives, and to reach this you must be able to collect pieces of information in every possible circumstance, no matter how bad it seems to be." she clasped her hands, "And tonight your team has failed this task."

"Yeah, 'bout that," Chuck reluctantly said, clearing his throat, "there's an apparently insignificant detail that I didn't yet… well, because, you know, I needed to evaluate its relevance before sharing it with you, since, you see, I am a very profes…" he suddenly coughed, "professional, ah, spy, and…"

Casey lost his patience and interrupted him, growling a "Bartowski, shut it."

"Are you playing the carrot and stick game with _me_, Agent Carmichael?!" Beckman inquired severely, "I must warn you that my stick is _far_ much bigger than yours…"

Chuck, Sarah and Casey stood still, staring at her impassive sour visage. They were speechless and agape, and it took some seconds for them to convince their jaws to close, trying in the meantime to prevent themselves guffawing or sneering, if possible.

"No, um… no doubt, ma'am…" Chuck nodded as soon as he managed to regain his composure, at least partially, "However, ah, actually I…" he thought about it for a second, and decided to take some credit for himself, "I've managed to obtain some info from Rosenthal …"

"And what would that be?" Casey retorted, snorting skeptically, "His shoe size, or perhaps his favorite cocktail?"

Chuck gave him a short fake laugh, "That's funny, very funny," he answered back, "but wrong. No, actually I got a name, or at least part of it. Our unnamed man happens to have a surname like everyone else, in the end."

The General showed her surprise by narrowing her eyes, but she just kept an inquiring expression and silently waited for him to continue.

Casey started, saying "And you call that an 'apparently insignificant detail'…" he shook his head, "God help us."

But the most painful reproach came from Sarah."What?! Chuck why didn't you tell us that before?!" she burst out incredulous and slightly hurt by his behavior, "I thought that we deserved your trust, more than ever after what we did last night!"

He felt as guilty as never before, but he really didn't know why he hadn't mentioned that news before. A mixture of excuses crowded his mind, from the most banal ones to the most intricate ones.  
Like _you were wounded, I was worried and I didn't even think about it. _Not wholly true. He'd often been thinking about it.  
Or _I was afraid that his name could pull us apart once again like a wordy ghost,_ well, if that had been the real problem, he could always have called the Ghostbusters.  
Or even _I'll never get used to a world in which people die ten times more than usual, and yet many of them come back from hell without even a scratch_. Classic style, it would have turned a personal problem into an existential crisis that was hitting their whole world.

But all those reasons were either scarcely relevant or mere psychological craps.

In the end he opted for a simple apology, "Sorry, Sarah." he said, as a tentative smile instinctively rose on his face, "I don't know why I acted like that, I didn't mean to keep you in the dark, guys. It's just… I guess I was simply trying to forget it, convincing myself that I had just imagined it."

Sarah's expression softened and her anger faded away as a sudden bewilderment crossed her eyes, "Chuck, why would you need to do that?"

He lowered his eyes, heaving a sigh filled with hesitation, "Larkin." One word, one answer, a sudden bolt from the blue.

Casey was the first to react, bursting out "No way, he's dead!" _Damn, not again! He can't possibly have gotten out of his coffin once again! _he thought.

"La…" Sarah panted a second later, breathing with a difficulty and staring at him. The look in her eyes was halfway between disbelief and shock, "It can't be him," she muttered, trying keep a steady voice and to show a certainty that she actually didn't have, "this has to be a simple coincidence … there are thousands of Larkins in this country."

"I agree," joined the Colonel.

Beckman, who had barely raised an eyebrow, retort "In our job there aren't many coincidences."

"General, I have to disagree, I saw his dead body…" begun Casey, but she peremptorily stopped him.

"I'm not saying that Agent Larkin is alive, Colonel. It's obvious that Mr. Rosenthal mentioned his name solely to his own benefit. He gave Agent Carmichael a piece of useless data, both to unveil Carmichael's position into the Agency and his value, and also to make him subconsciously feel in debt and force him to repay it with some other intelligence. Agent Larkin was just bait."

Chuck, who had been standing in a thoughtful silence since then, interrupted their little discussion saying "Actually that's not completely correct, it was just Larkin."

"What do you mean?" asked back the General.

"Rosenthal said just 'Larkin', he never mentioned the appellation 'agent', I'm…" he thoughtfully narrowed his eyes, "…_quite_ sure of it."

She gave him an icy glance.

"No, ah, _totally_… totally sure, yeah. It was just a slip of the tongue," he awkwardly corrected himself waving an hand, "however I think that you are both right. Yeah, well, Bryce is dead, there are many Larkins in our country, and Rosenthal mentioned that name just hoping to get something else back. But the info he gave me was not useless."

Beckman narrowed her eyes, asking "How can you be sure of that?"

He cleared his throat, explaining "I flashed on that name, when Rosenthal said it. But at that time I didn't attach any importance to it."

His partners, as much as the General, frowned. "And why, if I may ask?" she solicited him.

"In the flash I saw a simple succession of blank sheets of paper and I was too…" he cleared his throat, "…busy to notice it. But I've just realized that they actually had a meaning, because they were _almost_ completely empty, _apart from_ the heading. In fact there was the CIA seal in one corner, identifying those sheets as part of an Agency dossier." he paused, "The file on Bryce Larkin."

"So what?" Casey said, "The Agency hound dogs haven't been able to gather all the information on him, what's so strange about it?"

"Actually, this is _very_ strange because…" explained Chuck, "those were the pages on 'parents personal particulars', 'family tree', 'closest living relatives', and so on. Just empty spaces."

"How's that possible?!" the General burst out, as a fist of astonishment cracked the pristine surface of her coldness.

"I don't know," Chuck admitted, shrugging, "but the intersect has found a link between the two facts and I think that we should follow its advice and look for Bryce's relatives."

Beckman stood silent for a while, lost in thought, but all of a sudden she looked up at them and said "Alright, I'll charge our experts with finding out everything they can on the Larkins. From now on, you'll have just to maintain your cover, until further notice."

That said, she closed the communication as sharply as usual.

"Well, it could have been worse…" Chuck remarked, raising a smile.

"Moron." was instead Casey's plain comment.

* * *

**C****.I.A.N.S.A. Inc. Hall**

"We did it!" exclaimed Chuck, beaming, "The CIANSA Inc. is officially born and operating! Let's toast to our new creature!"

A chorus of 'cheers!' and 'hurray!' answered to his plea. Just a couple of nights had passed since last mission, and Chuck, Sarah, Casey and all the employees of the newly-born company were having a little party in the large hall after the opening ceremonies.

And the refreshment was kindly donated by the NSA. Not a very patriotic way of spending the tax-payers' money, though an unquestionably delightful one.

Chuck had a glowing complexion, and his face got even brighter when he turned to Sarah, looked into her blue eyes and tried to give voice to some of his feelings "You know, I don't even know how to describe it, but this is… just…" he was struggling to find out the right words.

She beamed at him. She was all the same radiant in her sapphire-blue long dress, even though she had an arm hanging in a sling at her neck, and in spite of being still forced to walk helping herself with a crutch. "Like a dream coming true?" she suggested with simplicity.

He nodded, grinning even more widely, "You bet it."

Her expression darkened a little bit, as she murmured "Sometimes I wonder how it feels."

"Easy peasy, sweetie, to find it out you could just kiss me…" he hinted and gave her his famous eyebrow dance along with his best cheesy smile, but he had to stop as she looked daggers at him. "Um, message received. I'll shut up now." he said squeezing his lips and feigning a grudge against her. And his face flushed as his conscious-self realized what he had just done. _A frontal assault?! Are you gone mad?!_

But she chuckled genuinely, slapping gently him on his arm and relieving him from his embarrass.

However Chuck's silence didn't last long, as he suddenly spotted Casey and moved beside him, exclaiming "It feels great, don't you agree?"

The Colonel growled a short unintelligible answer. Probably an offensive one, thought Chuck, laughing slightly. "Listen, I know that you aren't exactly fond of the name Carmichael Informatics and Advanced Networking Supercomputer Assistance Inc…" he admitted, smirking and thinking that the name sounded very good.

"Nah, what makes you think so? It has just a moronic acronym." he replied, snorting sarcastically, "Not to mention the moronic boss." he added, glaring at Chuck.

"…but you'll have to come to terms with that, sooner or later." Chuck ended, cracking a smile, "Don't worry soldier, you'll get used to it without even noticing it… C'mon," he said, patting him on the back, "you could even start considering leaving the NSA and taking this as your _real_ job!"

The other snarled, turning to Sarah, "Walker, if I ever become such a nematode, please give me your word that you'll end me in the most painful way." he stated, deadly serious.

* * *

"Shit, we're late, man!" cursed Lester as he broke in the room with Jeff, but as he realized where he was he suddenly stopped and started, "Whoa! Hey dude, didn't you say that Chuck was having a masked party?" he asked with a groan.

"Really?" Jeff inquired, raising his eyebrows perplexedly.

"Yeah, yesterday evening!" the other replied between clenched teeth,

"Oh, I don't remember… I must have been sober." he retort wincing.

"Great!" exclaimed Lester, rolling his eyes with exasperation, "I bet that you don't even remember telling me that the theme was the damn _Moulin Rouge_!"

Jeff gave his head a little shook, "Nope. And now that you make me think about it, actually a masked party at 9 o'clock in the morning would be quite odd…"

"Shut you up, oaf!" he yelled, attracting the attention of all those present. His face went pale and his jaw begun quivering slightly, but he continued hissing "Can you look at me now and tell me, what do you see?"

The other stared at him with a thoughtful expression, "Um, a twenty something lady dressed with a nice old-style pink corset - perhaps just a little bit too flat at the front - adorned with black lace stripes, a scanty fluttering black skirt, a sexy garter belt and some fishnet stockings that let me catch a glimpse on quite a pair of non-smooth legs…"

"I didn't have the time to wax them…" Patel justified himself shrugging, but then he remembered to bring back his reproaching attitude, "However, that's not the point! Now look down at yourself and tell me once more, what do you see!" he ordered with the highest pitch his vocal cords could stand.

"Well, a pretty thirty something redheaded lady with a red and black corset opportunely filled at the front, combined with a large bright-red cumbersome ballerina skirt and a pair of soft black elbow gloves. And I have also the authentic reproduction of a nice pair of nineteenth century culottes, here under the skirt… wanna see them?" proposed Jeff lustfully.

"NO! Do you think that we're properly dressed for this kind of party?!" the other screamed with a shaky voice, pointing at the rest of the people crowding the room.

Jeff followed Lester's finger and looked at the other guests, who were speechlessly staring at them. Giving them his best lopsided smile, he winked at them and waved a gloved hand as a greeting. Then he turned to Lester, "Don't get mad, darling, or else your beautiful lace hat will slip down." he said, stretching his hands towards the hat as if to adjust it.

Lester cursed and chased away his arms with a slap, taking his hat off and flinging it to the ground. Then he jumped on it with his pink leather ankle boots and stamped his feet, almost stumbling because of the high heels.

Done that, he stomped out of the room with a walk that was neither feminine nor elegant and 'Miss' Barnes reprimanded him "Straighten those shoulders and wiggle those hips of yours, ill-mannered!"

Afterward, he turned one last time to their audience and leaned a kiss on his hand, blowing it towards them and adding "Sorry for the inconvenience, but Jeffster are compelled to briefly abandon the stage, in order to change their clothes. See you later, guys, and thank you Burbank, we love you too!" he shouted leaving the room with his hands raised to the sky.

But after a couple of seconds he hurried back and picked up Lester's hat, shaking off the dust and explaining "You know, the deposit for the rented costumes…"

* * *

After half an hour they came back, wearing some casual clothes and finally camouflaging themselves within the crowd.

When Chuck saw them, he cracked a smile and headed towards them, closely followed by Sarah.

Noticing him, Lester poked at Jeff and gave a nod, saying "Hey, there he is, our boss."

"He has come a long way, hasn't he?" Jeff stated, praiseful.

"Yeah, I just hope he won't get big headed. Power often has that effect, don't you know?" he said, but after glancing at him he added "No, of course you don't…"

For a while they lost themselves staring at Sarah's legs, but Lester suddenly realized that she was limping, supporting herself on a crouch and her arm was in a sling. She had also a band-aid appearing from under her hair and some small scratches and nicks all over her face. Beside her, Chuck had a hand put in plaster, a band-aid on his nose and as many cuts as his girlfriend.

"Hey, bubala," he asked, "did you hear anything about an accident involving them two?"

Jeff gave his head a convinced shake, "No, man. But I know the most likely reason of those injuries."

"That would be?"

"There are only two words to describe it…" Jeff whispered in his ear, with a know-it-all look on his face, "Wild sex, man, wild sex…" he explained solemnly.

"What?!" the other burst out, managing to lower his voice just in time, "Do you really think so?!"

"Yep." he affirmed, giving him a knowing wink.

"I can't believe it! How can a single man possibly have all this luck?!" Patel complained in a low, whiny voice.

Jeff shook his head, mumbling "All I know is that we can just admire him."

As Chuck reached them, he grinned and said "Hi guys."

"Hail, master!" they greeted him back in chorus.

"Why were you dressed like… w-what?!" he burst out, finally realizing what they had just said, "Master?" he repeated knitting his brow, and searching into Sarah's eyes for an explanation that she didn't have either.

If Lester and Jeff had a straw hat, they probably would have been holding it before their chest as two respectful villains in front of their mighty landholder.

Their expression, though, was the same.


End file.
